A Utah woman pleaded guilty last Thursday to killing six of her newborn children and hiding their bodies inside her home for close to 20 years, the Associated Press reported.
Megan Huntsman told police she was addicted to meth and did not want to raise any more children during the time of the killings from 1996 to 2006. So after giving birth at her Pleasant Grove home, she suffocated or strangled them, she told police. The 39-year-old admitted to wrapping them in cloth and plastic bags before placing them inside cardboard boxes in her garage, the AP reported.
Utah County prosecutors made a deal with Huntsman and she pleaded guilty to the deaths of six infants, her voice cracking each time she said "guilty" to each count during her court hearing. Police refused to reveal the reason Huntsman gave for stuffing her dead babies inside boxes and keeping them in her garage until they were discovered last April.
"It truly is unexplainable," Pleasant Grove detective Dan Beckstrom told the AP.
Huntsman's husband, Darren West, discovered the remains when he was at the home collecting his belongings and notified the police. Investigators arrived and found a total of seven bodies. One of the babies was determined to have been stillborn.
It was also determined that the estranged husband, who was not charged in the case, is the father of the babies. West and Huntsman shared the home during the 10-year span she gave birth before he was sent to prison for eight years on meth charges, the AP reported. He had just been released when he made the grim discovery.
It's still unknown how Huntsman hid the pregnancy, killings and bodies from her friends and family. She and West have three other children who are now staying with family members.
Relatives who attended her Thursday court hearing said they support her deal for reduced time.
But, "we'll be shocked if she ever gets out," Utah County prosecutor Jeff Buhman told the AP.
