PLEASANT GROVE, Utah -- Pleasant Grove police arrested a woman Saturday who they said admitted to giving birth to at least seven babies, then strangling or suffocating six of them to death immediately after they were born.
Megan Huntsman, 39, faces six charges of first-degree felony murder in connection with the deaths, all of which allegedly occurred between 1996 and 2006 at her former residence in Pleasant Grove.
According to a probable cause statement, Huntsman told police she also gave birth to a stillborn baby at the home.
Click here to read the probable cause statement. [PDF, 135 KB]
Huntsman made these admissions after she had been read her Miranda rights, the statement said.
Police responded to the home Saturday after receiving a report from Darren West, Huntsman's estranged husband, that he found a baby wrapped in a plastic garbage bag in the garage at the residence.
West reportedly contacted Huntsman to inquire about the baby and Huntsman told him the baby was stillborn in 2006.
"The baby was well preserved and appeared to be full term," a Pleasant Grove officer wrote in a report.
West also contacted Pleasant Grove police, who obtained a search warrant for the home and discovered the six additional bodies. Each body was wrapped in a towel or shirt, placed inside a plastic bag and then placed in a separate cardboard box, the statement said.
On Monday morning, Huntsman appeared in court via closed-circuit television and a judge set her bail at $1 million for each count of murder she faces, for a total bail amount of $6 million.
Listen to the bond hearing below:
The bodies have been taken to the Utah State Office of the Medical Examiner, where doctors and forensic anthropologists can determine the sex of each child, the exact manner of death for each child and who fathered them.
Huntsman is due back in court on April 21.
