This article was in today's desert and pass edition of The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Ca, USA)
It doesn't appear on their website. I typed the article verbatim. Any typo's are mine
Woman's trial starts in newborn's death
By Jose Arballo Jr.
Riverside-Unemployed, depressed and lonely, Donna Knight believed all she had left was her religion.
But the Jehovah’s Witness faith that the Riverside woman followed does not allow for sexual relations outside marriage. Fornication outside marriage is grounds for excommunication. So, when Knight became pregnant, a prosecutor told a jury Tuesday, she hid her condition, gave birth over a toilet and then drowned the newborn in September 1999.
“He lived. He breathed. He ended up in a toilet.” Deputy District Attorney Denna Bennett told the panel that will decide whether Knight is guilty of murder. “She ended his life because she was afraid of what would happen to her”.
Defense lawyer Grover Porter countered that Knight, 37, was taking medication for depression and was seeing a therapist. Knight, who weighed between 275 and 300 pounds, did not know she was pregnant, Porter said. She had seen a doctor for a vaginal infection only weeks before the incident, and he did not examine her, he added.
Porter urged the jury to “just listen” and “do what’s right”.
Knight’s trial began Tuesday in Riverside County Superior Court with opening statements and testimony from witnesses.
With no other eyewitnesses other than Knight, Bennett suggested that the case is based in large part on physical evidence, including of an autopsy showing the child survived birth and died from drowning, and Knight’s changing statements to investigators. The newborn could have lived for as long as three minutes, she said.
Initially, Knight told investigators she was having pain and went to the bathroom believing a bowel movement would ease the discomfort. Knight suggested she “passed something huge”, lowering the toilet lid without looking then flushed, Bennet said. Knight told investigators she did not know she had given birth until later, when she came back to the bathroom and saw the boy’s foot sticking out of the water.
Later, Bennett said, the story changed, and Knight told investigators she thought she was passing blood clots. At one point, Bennett said Knight told investigators: “I hear this cry. I don’t know where it’s coming from.”
Knight told investigators she believed the noise was a cat. Bennett said Knight removed the baby from the toilet and placed the infant and the afterbirth in the nearby tub.
The jury of 10 women and two men was shown a photo of the infant, its body still connected to the umbilical cord lying next to the placenta. Knight turned away from the monitor, shaking her head and weeping.
Throughout the investigation, Bennett said, Knight denied knowing she was pregnant. But letters found in Knight’s apartment suggest she knew of her condition, Bennett said, and she briefly enrolled in a course at Riverside Community College that focused on child development and birth.
Knight was excommunicated from her church after the investigation was completed, Bennett said.
In her final interview, Bennett said, Knight conceded she knew of her pregnancy.