Police discover dead baby in trash can in suburban Lee’s Summit: court records
A man called police to his apartment in suburban Lee’s Summit on Tuesday after he admitted to throwing a dead baby that he had found inside a closet in the trash.
The call sent officers to the 1000 block of N.E. Lindsey Avenue, where the man reporting the incident was briefly detained by police outside. Police searched the apartment first, seeking to render medical aid to the baby, and later found the baby dead in a trash bag outside the home, according to court records.
Sgt. Chris Depue, a spokesman for the department, said Friday there is an ongoing police investigation. It is currently classified as a death investigation, Depue said, and no criminal charges have been filed.
Details of the investigation were revealed in a search warrant filed in Jackson County Circuit Court. The Star is not identifying the people named in the documents because neither has been charged with a crime.
According to court records, the man told police he had been living at the residence with his girlfriend for roughly a year, but they had broken up sometime in late October or early November. She had moved to her brother’s house in Liberty, but still had a key to the apartment.
The woman spent the night on Nov. 7 as the couple sought to work out their differences, he told police. He left for work the following day around 6:30 a.m. and returned home that evening to find his girlfriend lying in front of the bathroom entryway. Blood was all over the floor.
The girlfriend was taken by ambulance to an area hospital after the boyfriend called 911. While there, the boyfriend told police, he overheard a paramedic say his girlfriend may have had a miscarriage.
The boyfriend suggested to police that he was unaware of the pregnancy, telling them he had asked her while she was being treated in the hospital whether she had known she was pregnant. She did not answer his question or say whether she had had a miscarriage, he told investigators.
Later that night, sleeping at his home, the man awoke and opened a closet looking for toilet paper, he told police. He then found a wet pair of pants, lifted them up, and found a dead baby underneath.
The man was “not thinking straight” after the discovery, and decided to throw the baby in the trash outside along with other bloody items, he allegedly told police. He also noticed a metal hanger in the bathroom closet on the floor, he said, which was “abnormal because he does not own a metal hanger,” a detective wrote in the search warrant application.
