15-Year-Old Killed Her Newborn Baby, Dumped Body Inside Garbage Bag: Prosecutor

A 15-year-old girl in England allegedly killed her newborn baby boy right after giving birth three years ago by assaulting him and suffocating him with cotton wool.

Paris Mayo is on trial for the murder of her son Stanley Mayo, who died at her family's home in Herefordshire on March 23, 2019, and was discovered in a garbage bag outside the residence the following day, the BBC reported. Mayo denies killing the baby.

The now-19-year-old girl claimed she was unaware that she was pregnant before the baby was born, the Worcester Crown Court heard.

Mayo claimed that she was taking a warm bath due to period pains when she unexpectedly went into labor and gave birth to a child in the living room of their home on the evening of March 23, 2019.

According to prosecutor Jonas Hankin, Mayo's parents were home at the time of the incident, but her mother was attending to her ailing father while he was undergoing home dialysis upstairs.

After giving birth, Mayo allegedly assaulted the baby, leaving him with a fractured skull and severe brain injury, the prosecutor said.

When she realized that the child was still alive around two hours later, Mayo allegedly stuffed pieces of cotton wool into the baby's mouth, throat and neck, the prosecutor said.

Mayo then allegedly placed the body of the baby inside a garbage bag and put the bag on the front doorstep outside.

The Worcester Crown Court also heard that the following morning, the teen girl allegedly messaged her older brother asking him to put the black bag in the trash bin, claiming it was "full of sick."

However, when Mayo's mother looked inside the bag, she found a baby inside, jurors heard.

The court was told that Mayo's mother immediately called England's emergency services number, and during the call, she "could be heard addressing her daughter saying, 'You could have told me, darling, you could have told me - poor baby', and repeating, 'Why didn't you tell me?"'

Mayo told paramedics that after she gave birth, the child was not moving or breathing and that she used cotton wool to clean up "stuff coming out" of the baby's mouth.

However, a postmortem showed that the baby was born alive and that the child suffocated from cotton wool that blocked his esophagus, The Guardian reported. Some of it had been shoved so deep that it was only discovered during autopsy, according to the postmortem.

While she denied knowing she was pregnant before the baby's birth, Mayo allegedly told a social media friend that she was ending a relationship as it was not fair to her then-boyfriend if she was having a baby.

The prosecutor alleged that Mayo killed the baby to prevent the discovery of her pregnancy and the child's birth.

"She didn't want a baby. Despite having parents and siblings who she acknowledged are loving and supportive, and who she could have turned to for help and advice, she murdered the baby," Hankin alleged.

The trial of Mayo remains ongoing.