Teenager, 18, is charged with killing her newborn baby boy by throwing his body into a dumpster because ‘it cost too much money’
- Jakayla Williams, 18, is currently being held without bond by Alabama cops
- The high school graduate, from Dothan, gave birth to a son on August 13
- She left him in a dumpster and lied to her family about his tragic fate
A teenager who left her newborn son into a dumpster shortly after giving birth faces the death penalty after she was arrested and charged for his murder.
Jakayla Williams, an 18-year-old from Dothan, Alabama, is currently being held without bail on one count of capital murder after cops found her son’s lifeless body wrapped in a blanket stuffed inside a dumpster near an apartment complex.
She admitted to Dothan Police Department detectives that she did not want to look after her child because the cost childcare was too high.
She reportedly gave birth to the baby at her home in secret, but when her family found out she was pregnant, she lied and said she had given birth at the Southeast Health Medical Centre.
Wanting to recover the child, her family took Jakayla, a recent graduate of local Dothan High School, to the healthcare centre, where the teen claimed that she had given her baby to an employee.
Jakayla Williams, an 18-year-old from Dothan, Alabama, (pictured) is currently being held without bail on one count of capital murder
The recent high school graduate admitted to Dothan Police Department detectives that she did not want to look after her child because the cost childcare was too high
She told her family she brought the baby to the Southeast Health Medical Center in Dothan
But the centre’s employees reviewed CCTV footage and found that Jakayla did not leave her baby with them.
They contacted the Dothan Police Department, who subsequently found her lifeless baby amidst a load of rubbish.
The exact cause the child’s death is currently unknown, though an autopsy for the child has now been ordered.
Will Benny, the chief of Dothan Police, said at a press conference: ‘It is absolutely shocking. In all my years of law enforcement, I’ve never heard of anything so horrific as this.
‘It shocks the mind. It shocks the soul. I don’t even really know what else to say about it.’
Local prosecutors say they are still weighing up the punishment they will be pursuing for the teen
In a tragic twist, the top cop said that had Jakayla gone to the hospital, employees would have accepted care of the now-dead infant under Alabama’s ‘no questions asked policy.’
It is not currently clear what Jakayla’s fate will be, should she be found guilty of her capital murder charge.
Local prosecutors say they are still weighing up the punishment they will be pursuing in this case.
Houston County’s District Attorney Russ Goodman declined to comment on whether his office would try and sentence the 18-year-old to death.
‘It’s something that we have not even discussed,’ he told local news station WTVY following her arrest.
‘That will be a decision that is made down the road.’
While prosecutors may not have decided whether to send Jakayla to death row, her state’s capital punishment figures may give her cause for concern.
Alabama sentences more people to death per capita than any other US state, the Equal Justice Initiative says.
The state also doesn’t impose an age limit on who can receive a death row sentence.
On top of this, the state allows death sentences to pass without unanimous juries.
The non-profit reports that 80% of people currently on death row in the state did not receive unanimous jury verdicts for death.
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