Sep 22, 2006 10:39 pm US/Pacific
D.A. Says DNA Of Dead Baby Matches Holly Ashcraft
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ―
The DNA of a USC student was a 99.93 percent match with the newborn baby boy she is charged with murdering, a prosecutor said Friday.
"Based on this comparison, Holly Ashcraft cannot be excluded from being the mother," said Deputy District Attorney Franco Baratta, concluding the first day of a preliminary hearing to decide whether Ashcraft should stand trial on charges of murdering her son.
The 99.93 percent probability that Ashcraft was the mother of the baby described as John Doe .171 -- who was discovered by a homeless man in a box in a trash bin -- was a "conservative" figure, Baratta noted, because it did
not take into account the race of the mother.
Ashcraft, 21, from Billings, Mont., has pleaded not guilty to one count each of murder and child abuse in connection with the newborn's death.
Ashcraft was arrested in October but is free on bail, after a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner agreed in November to reduce her bail amount from $2 million to $200,000.
Officers found the newborn's body behind The Two Nine at 2827 S. Hoover St. last October, after they were alerted by a homeless man, who called 911 and testified today to discovering the baby. The bar-restaurant, which was closed
at the time, is a popular hangout for USC students.
The body was inside a white box, along with some paper trash, according to police.
An autopsy report released in February determined the baby's death to be a homicide due to "caretaker neglect," according to Deputy Medical Examiner David B. Whiteman, who noted that intentional asphyxia could not be ruled out
as a cause of death.
According to the autopsy report, the baby was born alive after a 32-week pregnancy.
Ashcraft was investigated by police in April 2004, when she arrived bleeding at a downtown hospital and doctors determined she'd given birth. She claimed she'd given birth to a stillborn but had disposed of the body.
Investigators never found the body and Ashcraft was never arrested or charged.
LAPD detective Rose Gaeta, who booked Ashcraft in connection with the baby
John Doe's death, said the young woman initially did not want to notify her family of her arrest. But she eventually agreed that Gaeta could contact her sister.
"I identified myself, I asked her sister if she knew Holly was pregnant, she said no," Gaeta said. "She was upset. She asked if Holly was okay."
During the conversation, Gaeta said, Ashcraft's sister told how Ashcraft had visited the family in Montana for a cousin's wedding over Labor Day weekend 2005, shortly before her arrest.
Gaeta testified that Ashcraft's sister told her that she had noticed that Ashcraft had put on some weight, her breasts were larger and she'd been vomiting.
At the time, Ashcraft explained to her sister that she'd gained weight after taking birth control pills and blamed food poisoning for her vomiting.
Gaeta acknowledged that during authorities' investigation into Ashcraft, no one in the apartment complex near the university she was living in suspected she was pregnant, although one woman described her as heavy-set.
Mark Geragos, who is representing Ashcraft, ticked off a list of friends and relatives close to Ashcraft, who told investigators they never suspected Ashcraft was pregnant.
Reading from investigators' reports, he noted how one male friend said "she didn't look pregnant at all" and that she was wearing "a tank top and jeans," while another person described her as "really skinny," he said.
Ashcraft's foster mother told investigators that when she saw her over the Labor Day weekend, she said Ashcraft "didn't look pregnant" -- "She looked tiny. She never looked better."
If convicted Ashcraft faces 25 years to life in prison.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
