Traverse City Record-Eagle

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September 10, 2010

GT baby's death leads to charges

BY ALEX PIAZZA apiazza@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — A Traverse City woman is accused of wrapping her newborn baby in sheets and blankets and hiding it in a shed, where police said the body remained for about seven months before the family dog dragged it outside.

Grand Traverse County prosecutors charged Lynzee Diana Sanders, 27, with involuntary manslaughter and concealing the death of an infant child. The involuntary manslaughter charge is a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and/or $7,500, while concealing the death of an infant child is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and/or $1,000.

Grand Traverse sheriff's deputies arrested Sanders on Thursday morning after she allegedly told authorities she wrapped her newborn baby in bed sheets and blankets, stuffed the body in a plastic bag and hid it last October in a storage shed behind her Garfield Township home.

The criminal charges come after a five-month investigation into the death of the infant, identified by deputies as "Baby Girl Doe."

Two teens were building a sandbox in the backyard of a Gladewood Lane home on May 14 when they discovered the dead infant lying on a slab of concrete. They began to yell, which prompted another teen to call 911.

Initial reports indicated the family dog dragged the infant's dead body from the shed.

"The body appeared to be disfigured, possibly from animal activity," a Grand Traverse sheriff's deputy said in a police report.

Investigators scoured the area for six hours and interviewed several residents.

Clothing found near the plastic bag, which allegedly contained the infant's dead body for months, belonged to Sanders, so deputies took her to the hospital for a series of tests to determine whether she was the mother.

The results of an initial ultrasound and a physical examination at Munson Medical Center determined "there was no recent pregnancy and that Lynzee Sanders has not ever given birth," police reports show.

But Dr. Stephen Cohle, a Grand Rapids forensic pathologist, said Sanders could have physically recovered from her pregnancy, depending on how much time elapsed between birth and discovery of the dead infant.

As authorities awaited final autopsy results, a group of Grand Traverse sheriff's deputies who responded to the incident helped organize a memorial service for the infant in June at Oakwood Catholic Diocesan Cemetery in Traverse City.

Test results later received from a DNA diagnostic center in Ohio indicated Sanders was the mother of the dead infant. She then told investigators she gave birth to a live baby girl last October, but believed the infant died shortly after delivery, court records show.

"I just waited a little and it still wasn't doing anything and so I just, I think I wrapped it up in a sheet," Sanders told a Grand Traverse sheriff's deputy, according to a police report. "And then I just must have put it in the thing, put it out in the shed, cause I didn't know what to do. I thought it was dead when it came out of me."

Her relatives told authorities they were unaware Sanders was pregnant.

Sanders remained in the Grand Traverse County Jail on Thursday afternoon. Judge Thomas J. Phillips is expected to arraign Sanders this morning in 86th District Court. Prosecutor Alan Schneider said he doesn't plan to file criminal charges against any other individuals involved in the case.

The accusations against Sanders come two weeks after prosecutors filed criminal charges in juvenile court against a Traverse City girl involved in an infant death case. Traverse City police in March found a dead newborn boy in the basement of a Griffin Street home after a teen resident was admitted to Munson Medical Center with hemorrhaging caused during childbirth.

The girl, 16, allegedly failed to seek medical treatment for a newborn baby whose body was discovered in a basement closet under a tarp, wrapped in wet towels and stuck in a tightly tied plastic bag. Because the girl is a juvenile, at most she faces detention in a juvenile facility until age 21.

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