A 24-year-old woman from Iowa, USA, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for drowning her infant daughter in the bathtub in her apartment minutes after giving birth, the New York Post reports.
Taylor Blaha pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last Friday, weeks after her partner Brandon Thoma pleaded guilty in a child endangerment and disregard trial.
Webster County Sheriff’s Office
On November 22, the mother, with the help of the father, held her newborn baby girl under water to stifle her screams until she died. Later, the couple packed the baby’s remains in a backpack and the father hid the body in the forest.
According to Taylor Blaha, her partner gave her methamphetamine at her home during the delivery to relieve her pain. The screams of the newborn then led the parents to fear that neighbors would call the police
Concerned that authorities might discover that the girl had drugs in her blood and that child protection services would strip them of custody of their two-year-old boy, the parents then agreed that it was better to drown their baby.
After cutting the umbilical cord, which the couple wanted to keep as a souvenir, the father helped his wife stand by the bathtub and showed him how to submerge the little girl.
“When I tried to take my hands away, he put them back on her and encouraged me to keep going,” Taylor Blaha said.
This sordid story began in April 2022 when the mother announced to her husband that she was pregnant. The couple then planned to put their future child in the hands of another family member for adoption as they had no intention of raising that second child, the mother said.
However, the police investigation revealed on their mobile phones that both parents had researched online to find out how to induce a miscarriage.
Both had originally been charged with first-degree murder, but managed to have the charges against them reduced in exchange for a guilty plea.