A 17-year-old Mesa County girl was arrested Tuesday in connection with the death of her newborn daughter over the weekend.
An autopsy found that the baby died from asphyxiation and the coroner ruled the death a homicide.
Cheyenne Mischele Corbett turned herself in to the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office and will be charged as an adult with first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Susan McBurney.
“The investigators have spoken with the district attorney’s office, and due to the severity of the alleged crime they have decided to charge the 17-year-old as an adult,” McBurney said.
According to an arrest affidavit, Corbett was admitted Saturday morning to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, where a doctor became suspicious of her bleeding and thought she showed signs of having given birth.
With a police officer present, “the doctor advised Cheyenne of his belief she had given birth and asked where the baby was,” sheriff’s investigator Lissah Norcross said in the document. “Cheyenne denied having been pregnant and/or having given birth.”
She later admitted to giving birth, and deputies searched the girl’s Fruitvale home and found the baby dead in a bedroom, wrapped in a towel inside an entertainment center cabinet, authorities said.
During an interview later with Norcross, Corbett said she had delivered the baby by herself, cut the umbilical cord and tied it into a knot, wrapped the newborn loosely in a towel and then placed the baby in the cabinet to hide the girl from her parents, according to the affidavit.
During the autopsy, Dr. Robert Kurtzman determined the child was alive at birth, about 6.6 pounds and fully developed, authorities said.
Earlier this month, Corbett’s father suspected she was pregnant and took her to a doctor’s office. However, she said, she specifically asked doctors that the information from the visit not be shared with her parents.
Early Saturday, suffering from back pain, Corbett took a shower and after feeling the urge to push, she gave birth to the baby in the shower, the investigator said.
Jack Cozzens of Colorado Safe Haven for Newborns, an organization aimed at ending infant abandonment, said that in Colorado, a mother or father on the verge of abandoning their newborn has 72 hours to turn over the baby unharmed to an employee at a hospital or a fire station without fear of prosecution.
The law has been in effect for six years, but has not been publicized enough, Cozzens said.
“For years, the citizens of Colorado would read of such tragedies with horror, and compound the ache with a real sense of helplessness,” Cozzens said. “Then when the Safe Haven Law was passed we thought that would solve the problem. Well, it hasn’t. Babies continue to be thrown away in Colorado.”
Corbett’s family could not be reached for comment.
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
