commentary by Patrick H. Moore
We probably all have certain secrets that we would probably not want to see the light of day. Extra-marital affairs, financial crimes (including tax evasion), skeletons in the family closet, cowardice (or even worse atrocities) while serving in the military, these are but a few of the guilty secrets we might try to suppress. One guilty secret most of us probably do not harbor, however, is infanticide, unless of course we lump therapeutic abortion within the general category of baby-killing.
Abortion may not be that popular in the great state of Utah where Mormon families, which constitute a large percentage of the state’s population, are encouraged to be fruitful and to multiply. Of course, this can result in a thorny new problem. What the heck do you do with all those extra babies, you know, the ones you don’t want? You can’t very well feed them to your Rottweilers…
Megan Huntsman is only 39 years old. Until three years ago, she lived with her husband Darren West (some of the time) and her children in what has been described as a nondescript, newer home with a brick facade and a star ornament hanging by the door in a middle-class neighborhood of mostly older homes in Pleasant Grove, a community of 35,000, 35 miles South of Salt Lake City.
At present, Megan has three surviving daughters in their teens and early twenties who still live in that same house which belongs to Megan’s ex-husband’s parents. It turns out, however, that while living with her ex, Megan – who apparently eschewed birth control – became pregnant with what could be described as disheartening regularity.
For unknown reasons, Megan apparently hid the fact of her frequent, virtually yearly, pregnancies. Maybe she thought raising three girls was enough. This of course doesn’t explain how she hid the fact she was pregnant from her husband and daughters or the process by which she killed her unwelcome babies after surreptitiously ushering them into the world? One solution would be to kill them and hide their bodies in cardboard boxes in the garage, which apparently is precisely what Megan Huntsman did. Brady McCombs and Martin Griffith of the AP write:
A Utah woman accused of killing seven babies she gave birth to over 10 years was arrested Sunday after police discovered the tiny bodies stuffed in separate cardboard boxes in the garage of her former home.
According to investigators, Megan Huntsman had the infants between 1996 and 2006.
This macabre truth came to light on Saturday when officers responded to a call Saturday from Huntsman’s estranged husband Darren about a dead infant at the home, police Capt. Michael Roberts said. Upon investigation, officers then discovered the six other bodies.
Police say Darren was cleaning out the garage when he made the grisly discovery at the house owned by his parents… Several police cars blocked the entrance to the house Sunday evening as officers milled about with the contents of the garage strewn across the front lawn.
Neighbors of the Huntsmans are shocked by the accusations and perplexed that the woman’s three older daughters never realized their mother was pregnant or notice anything suspicious.
Captain Roberts declined to comment on a motive or disclose what Huntsman said while interviewed by investigators. She was booked Sunday into the Utah County Jail on six counts of murder.
The Captain did say that the estranged husband lived with Huntsman when the babies were born but is not a person of interest at this time.
“We don’t believe he had any knowledge of the situation,” Roberts told The Associated Press.
When asked how the man could not have known when he lived in the house with Megan, Roberts replied, “That’s the million-dollar question. Amazing.”
The babies’ bodies have been shipped to the Utah M.E.’s office for tests, including one to determine the cause of death. DNA samples have been taken and will determine definitively whether Megan and her ex-husband are the parents.
Although the Huntsmans’ neighbors were uniformly shocked and horrified by the accusations, many of them were eager to talk, although they were all unaware that Megan was pregnant repeatedly during the period in question.
According to Aaron and Kathie Hawker, who live next door, the Huntsmans seemed like good people and nice neighbors. One of the Huntsman’s daughters used to babysit the Hawker grandchildren.
“It makes us so sad, we want to cry,” Kathie Hawker said. “We enjoyed having them as a neighbor. This has just blown us away.”
Aaron Hawker revealed that he had talked with Megan’s ex on Saturday morning who told him that he was cleaning out the mess in the garage.
“Two hours later, suddenly we had all these policemen here.”
Fred Newman’s cousin is the ex’s mother. Newman said he’s perplexed how the three older daughters reportedly had no knowledge of Megan’s machinations. He mentioned that the girls sometimes parked their cars in the garage in the cold winter months.
“What’s shocking is the three older ones living there and not noticing that their mother was pregnant,” Newman said.
Like a good neighbor, Newman used to go to the trouble of using his snow-blower to clean off the driveway of the Huntsman’s home, and the three daughters would always thank him.
According to neighbor Vickie Nelson, the girls were normal youngsters, coming and going often.
“It’s shocking and kind of morbid and strange,” Nelson said as she gazed across the street at the garage.
Captain Roberts admitted that the case has been “emotionally draining” to him and the investigators.
“My personal reaction? Just shocked. Couldn’t believe it. The other officers felt the same,” the 19-year police veteran said.
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Well, I must object and I’m certain I’m not the only one who feels that way. How could nobody have known anything? We have the daughters, who as little girls living with an extremely fecund mother would have presumably become increasingly tuned in to female issues as the years passed. We have the ex who as Megan’s stalwart impregnator (and meth user according to some reports) must have realized that she was in a family way with conspicuous regularity. Perhaps during the course of the first few unwanted pregnancies, Megan told him that she had miscarried and in time, he assumed, that such was the case in each of the seven pregnancies. But that does not account for the obvious physical changes in a woman’s body that accompany pregnancy.
And what about the neighbors? What about the other mothers in the neighborhood? Surely, they must have noticed something? Didn’t they? Wouldn’t you if you were living next door?
And what about Megan herself? Did she really think that she would get away with this forever? The punishment-oriented crime fans of America are not going to go easy on Megan Huntsman, and in a sense, why should they? She should have used birth control or if not that, she should have put the babies up for adoption after carrying them to full term. But she did not. Instead, she killed her babies and put them in cardboard boxes out in the garage…