UPDATE: Just when you thought this couldn't get worse (details below) . . .
A 20-year-old Fullerton resident has been arrested for the September 2009 murder of her newborn baby boy.
Yanira Valderrama was arrested Thursday on suspicion of murder, child endangerment and
inflicting great bodily injury while committing a felony.
She is being held at Orange County Jail
for the death that
occurred more than seven months ago in her parents' Fullerton apartment.
Fullerton police investigators believe Valderrama concealed her pregnacy from her parents, delivered the baby full term and then killed the boy.
UPDATE: According to the Orange County District Attorney's Office, Valderrama drowned her baby in a bathroom toilet, wrapping him in a t-shirt and discarded him in a bedroom trashcan.
An OCDA statement follows after the jump . . .
]
April 9, 2010
WOMAN TO BE ARRAIGNED FOR MURDER OF HER NEWBORN BY DROWNING BABY IN TOILET AND THROWING BODY IN TRASH
SANTA ANA – A woman will be arraigned Monday on charges for murdering her newborn immediately after giving birth by drowning the baby in her bathroom toilet and throwing the body into a trash can. Yanira Valderrama, Fullerton, 20, is charged with one felony count of murder and one felony count of child abuse with a sentencing enhancement for inflicting great bodily injury. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of 15 years to life in state prison. The People will be requesting Valderrama be held on $1 million bail at her arraignment Monday, April 12, 2010, at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana. The time and Department are to be determined.
At approximately 10 p.m., on Sept. 4, 2009, Valderrama, then 19 years old, is accused of giving birth to a baby boy in her bathroom of her family's Fullerton home. The defendant is accused of putting the newborn in her bathroom toilet when she heard her mother try to enter from the connecting bedroom. No one in her family knew she was pregnant. After Valderrama's mother left the bedroom, the defendant is accused of wrapping the newborn in a t-shirt and throwing the baby into a bedroom trashcan. Shortly after, Valderrama is accused of expelling the placenta and hiding it underneath the bathroom sink.
Later that night, Valderrama's mother entered the bathroom and saw, the large amounts blood, and called 9-1-1. The paramedics arrived and transported the placenta, which her mother found under the sink, and the defendant to the hospital. Upon arriving at Anaheim Memorial Hospital, doctors examined Valderrama and determined that she had just given birth and alerted police. That same night, Anaheim police found the discarded newborn in the defendant's bedroom trash can.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Steve McGreevy of the Homicide Unit is prosecuting this case.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.