Megan Huntsman choked the newborn to death after only a few minutes of existence. When she became pregnant again, she also killed the infant. She killed six of her newborns over the span of ten years, beginning in 1996.
The Utah County Attorney’s Office reports that Huntsman kept the victims’ bodies wrapped in plastic in a makeshift tomb in her garage.
Prosecutors said she killed each baby within minutes of giving birth and then choked or smothered them, “sometimes by wrapping a ligature around the infant’s neck, but most often by pressing on their throats with her thumbs until they stopped breathing.” After that, she “stashed the bodies in various boxes and containers” at her Pleasant Grove, Utah, home.
According to prosecutors, Huntsman later told detectives that she had murdered her six babies because she was “too messed up on meth” to care for them.
A seventh baby was discovered in the garage, this time stillborn, according to The New York Times in 2014, the year she was arrested.
In yet another unusual turn of events, relatives and neighbors said they had no idea the woman was pregnant, saying Huntsman – a small woman weighing only 105 pounds – had successfully concealed the seven pregnancies, according to The Times. Friends stated they simply assumed she had gained a little weight.
However, the woman did not disguise every pregnancy. According to The Times, Huntsman had three living daughters at the time of her arrest, two born before the killing spree and one during it.
According to those close to Huntsman, she claimed she was the victim of domestic abuse, despite the fact that local police reported no complaints of domestic violence at the home.
Throughout the mother’s decade-long murder, officials appear to have overlooked countless opportunities to apprehend her.
According to The Times, federal narcotics enforcement authorities raided the Utah home in 2005, a year before the last assassination, while investigating her husband, Darren Brad West. (By 2014, the couple had split.) The officers discovered drug evidence in the garage but missed the slain babies, which were also hidden there.
A year later, West pled guilty to two drug possession charges and received a nine-year jail sentence, according to court documents later filed in the case and obtained by PEOPLE.
Just two weeks after his indictment, someone anonymously reported Huntsman’s use of methamphetamine to Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services, according to law enforcement officials. However, the department declined to elaborate on whether or not social workers responded, citing case confidentiality.
According to The Times, West’s relatives discovered the seven little, plastic-wrapped, heavily decomposing carcasses while rummaging in the garage in 2014.
According to The Times, Huntsman was taken to Utah County Jail and placed on suicide watch after being arrested.
Prosecutors said Huntsman, 40, pled guilty to six charges of first-degree murder on February 12, 2015. Later that year, she was convicted to six life terms, three of which were consecutive, and transferred to the Utah State Correctional Facility, where she was assigned Offender Number 221913.
The mother’s first parole hearing is scheduled for April 2064, according to authorities. At that point, she would be 89 years old.
If you suspect child abuse, contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or visit www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week in over 170 languages.