KENNER – A 21-year-old Metairie woman who police say confessed to throwing her newborn child into Lake Pontchartrain in an attempt to hide her pregnancy from her parents has been charged with first-degree murder even before the results of an autopsy have been completed, according to Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway.

The woman has been identified as Ciara Craig of Metairie.

"The girl admitted that it was her child," said Caraway, "that she gave birth to the child; that the child was moving when she gave birth, the legs were moving, she felt a heartbeat. As she prepared to throw the child into the water, or place the child in the water as she said, she had her hand on the baby's chest and could feel the heartbeating at that time. That's why she's been charged with first-degree."

Craig told police that she had received counseling about the pregnancy.

“She had spoke with some health care officials at some point before, during her pregnancy to see what options she (had)," Caraway said. "She actually considered abortion, (but) she was too far along, I believe is what she said. And when that wasn't an option, she tried to conceal the pregnancy from her family.”

Caraway said more publicity could be placed on the state’s Save Haven Law, which allows babies to be given up anonymously from birth up to 31 days at certain locations, like health care facilities or police stations, without prosecution

“Here you are with someone who didn’t want a child,” he said. “She didn’t want the responsibility, and you have people out there that would love to have kids that can’t. I think people need to be reminded that there is a safe haven law, and that there are other options besides discarding, in this case, killing a child.”

Craig is currently in the hospital and will be booked when she is released.

"She came here to the police department on her own free will," Kenner Police spokesman Brian McGregor said, adding that her parents accompanied her.


Video: Watch the Story McGregor said that the woman confessed to throwing the baby into the lake to hide the pregnancy from her parents.

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"She's coherent. She understands what she has done, and she realizes she's going to have to face the consequences for what she did, and she told us that," McGregor said. “She’s remorseful for what she did, she feels there’s other avenues that she should have taken for this.”

McGregor said that the parents suspected the woman was pregnant, but she denied that she was.

Police said that they received a tip from someone at an apartment complex who had seen a woman pull into a parking lot and throw some things into a garbage can. The person who gave the tip said that the car seemed to match reports of the car that the woman had been driving.

Police went to the complex and looked inside the garbage can, where they found the mother's placenta, McGregor said.

Tuesday, Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway said a baby girl's dead body was retrieved from Lake Pontchartrain near the Williams Boulevard Boat Launch with the umbilical cord still attached.

Caraway said witnesses around 1:30 p.m. told police they saw a woman casually walk up to the water and toss something in, and then turn around and casually walk away, getting back into her car and driving away.

Caraway said the witnesses went to the area where the woman had tossed in the object and found a child lying face down in the water with the umbilical cord still attached.

"I couldn't believe that there actually was a human body in there," said Elliott Lew, a park supervisor of the area. "It is going to leave me with a little bit of nightmares, most probably."

Caraway said there were many witnesses at the scene when it happened, and that they got a good look at the woman.

“It’s a shame. I mean, what’s this world coming to?” said Chris Bayer, who was a witness of the incident. “I mean, it’s pathetic. It’s really pathetic. Why would she have done a thing like that?”

"There’s no way to explain this, there’s no way to justify this," said Caraway. "Nothing can be so bad in your life to lead you to do something like this. This was a full-term, female baby, absolutely gorgeous. The umbilical cord was still somewhat attached."

Louisiana has a Safe Haven Law that lets a parent anonymously give up their newborn of 31 days or younger and leave them at certain locations. You can find out more about it in an Eyewitness News report here.


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