News

Actions

Police look at Megan Huntsman’s diary for details into infants’ deaths

Posted at 10:24 PM, May 05, 2014
and last updated 2014-05-06 00:24:46-04

UTAH COUNTY -- New search warrants unsealed Monday, reveal more details about what police discovered in a Pleasant Grove home where seven dead infants were found last month.

Megan Huntsman, of West Valley City, has been charged with six counts of homicide. Police say the 39-year-old woman admitted to strangling or suffocating six of her own newborn babies immediately after giving birth to them over a 10-year span beginning in 1996.

Police seized a tablet and a journal and forensic scientists are scouring through the digital tablet, searching for clues that may help prosecutors piece together what happened between 1996 and 2006.

According to newly released documents, it was Huntsman's boyfriend who told police about her digital diary. Detectives found a hand-written journal and a tablet.

"We haven't searched the diary in its entirety yet," said Lt. Britt Smith with Pleasant Grove Police Department.

It was just about a month ago when Huntsman's estranged husband Darrin West made the gruesome discovery in the home they used to share together. The remains of a newborn found packaged in a box, hidden in the garage.

"As you can imagine, the bodies were in various states of decomposition," Smith said.

Detectives eventually found seven dead babies. Huntsman told them the seventh was still born but newly released documents say "Megan initially said there could be as many as eight to nine deceased children in the home."

"We're uncertain as to why she lost count," Smith said.

Police don't have any evidence indicating there are any more bodies.

Along with Huntsman's possible digital confession to the six murders, police also took several items from her current home in West Valley City.

"We seized the desk to search for trace evidence, because we believe it was located in the crime scene at the time the crimes were committed," according to police.

While new details about the police investigation came to light from these affidavits, a key piece of information is still missing: a motive, cops are keeping tucked away from the public.

"We do have a motive, but we are not releasing that at this time. Quite honestly; the motive that we have when it is finally released it's not going to be anything that is really going to make it understandable for the average person. It's not going to be this moment where, ‘oh that would make sense as to why somebody to do that’ because there's no really explainable reason as to why somebody would do what was done," Smith said.

Huntsman remains in a Utah County Jail, on a $6 million cash-only bond. Her next court appearance is May 19.