By Dave Andrusko, NRL News
Ana Rosa Mora, 18, allegedly murdered her newborn by putting it in a plastic bag and leaving it outside to die.
Judge Laura Marie Sullivan Saturday ordered 18-year-old Ana Rosa Mora held on $500,000 bail for the murder of her full-term baby boy whom prosecutors said she placed outside her house in a plastic Walmart bag a week ago Saturday and then went back to bed.
"Prosecutors said that Mora told police the baby looked like her ex-boyfriend, who was in fact the father, and that she was afraid her current boyfriend would realize that and leave her," reported Mitch Smith for the Chicago Tribune.
The baby was alive when stuffed in the plastic shopping bag, The Cook County medical examiner's office later determined. He died of asphyxia and possible exposure. The baby was found by a construction worker.
Mora concocted an elaborate but flimsy cover story to fool those who knew she had been pregnant. Assistant State's Attorney Glen Runk said Mora told two staff members at Kelvyn Park High School that she had given birth, and showed them a photo of a baby girl on her iPad.
In the same conversation, prosecutors said, the high school senior "then brought up the dead baby found near her home and asked the school officials whether police had the right to take DNA from people in her house and whether that DNA would show who the child's mother was," Smith reported. When Mora was offered congratulations by a Chicago police officer stationed at the school, she further incriminated herself by telling the officer the baby was six months old in front of other staff members. (It turned out Mora had downloaded a baby's photo off the Internet.)
"One of the school staff members grew suspicious that evening and called the officer," Smith reported. "That officer called detectives, and police interviewed Mora on Tuesday. Officers arrested the teen at her Logan Square neighborhood home Friday afternoon."
Mora first denied the baby was hers, and then admitted placing him in the gangway next to her home in the 2700 block of North Hamlin Avenue.
