'Baby Angel' case: Mother pleads guilty to manslaughter
A 24-year-old Spring Valley immigrant pleaded guilty Monday to manslaughter in the killing of her newborn son after psychiatrists determined she acted under extreme emotional distress, suffered from brain damage and had an IQ of 53.
Maria Guaman-Guaman faces 15 years in state prison and mandatory deportation to her native Ecuador after her release.
Guaman-Guaman strangled her newborn and dumped his body amid cardboard inside a recycling bin in November less than a block from her home on North Myrtle Avenue.
The body was found the next day by a worker at an Elmsford recycling center. Spring Valley police – who spent weeks trying to locate the mother – christened him Baby Angel.
Guaman-Guaman's plea came after two psychiatrists determined she suffered from extreme emotional distress when she killed the baby, prosecutor Stephen Moore said.
The defense argued that she killed her child as a result of an emotional outburst or simmering emotional pressure – and hence did not appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions, said her attorney, Kenneth Murphy.
The finding dropped the original second-degree murder charge to first-degree manslaughter, which carries a prison term of five to 25 years. The murder count would have carried a sentence of 15 to 25 years to life.
State Supreme Court Justice William Kelly set sentencing for Sept. 4.
Moore said the examinations on Guaman-Guaman that found her low IQ determined that she had a brain injury from being kicked in the head by a horse as a child. She also lost an eye in the accident.
Moore said Guaman-Guaman said little during her court appearance, but admitted through an interpreter that she caused the death of the baby. She speaks Quechua, an ancient language spoken by indigenous people in the Andes.
"She knew she was pregnant and she delivered a full-term baby and caused his death," Moore said. "She admitted she strangled the baby."
Guaman-Guaman has a 3-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. A Family Court judge gave the daughter's father temporary custody of the child in January.
Guaman-Guaman was deported in 2009 but returned to the United States in 2010, Spring Valley Police Chief Paul Modica said.
When she gave birth to the boy on Nov. 12, she and her daughter were living with her aunts, uncles, brother, and other relatives at 41 N. Myrtle Ave. She worked at L'Chaim Catering in Hillburn. Her relatives praised her as a good mother and claimed they were unaware of her pregnancy.
She dumped the dead baby, with his umbilical cord attached, outside the Maple Convenience Store. The body was found wrapped in a skirt, a colorful blanket and pink underwear in a bag. Lottery tickets from the Spring Valley store were found in a separate bag and led Westchester County police to the neighborhood.
Spring Valley police spoke with Guaman-Guaman and family members several times before taking DNA swabs from her and her relatives. After DNA connected her to the infant, she gave police a statement about killing the baby.