Norfolk, IA– A 25-year-old woman and her father have been taken into custody after the woman’s newborn baby was found dead in a ditch.
The discovery was made on March 9th following a tip from one of the woman’s co-workers, who questioned the woman about the death of her infant.
Authorities say they began investigating Megan K. Staude after her co-workers noticed that she was no longer pregnant and became suspicious.
When officials spoke to Staude, she initially told them that the baby was born in her home on Feb. 24, but died on the way to the hospital.
Staude then continued with a statement that she decided to bury the infant in a cemetery in Cumming, Iowa.
Authorities checked the cemetery but could not find evidence of a freshly dug grave.
A day after being contacted, officials found the body of a newborn left in a trash bag on Delaware Street and began working on identifying the infant.
On March 13th, one of Staude’s co-workers contacted authorities with text messages between themselves and Staude where Staude admitted to leaving the infant while it was still alive.
“Was the baby alive when you left him?” and Staude replied, “A little,” according to the complaint.
Eventually, Staude confessed that after she had the baby, she put him in a box and did not care for him for two days.
After two days, Staude’s father, 64-year-old Rodney A. Staude, put the infant in a trash bag.
The pair went on to dump the infant in a ditch near Norwalk, where it was found by cadaver dogs.
Both the mother and the grandfather have been charged with first-degree murder.