An Indianapolis woman accused of hiding her stillborn baby in a shoe box says she was afraid of how her strict family would react to the secret pregnancy.
Fayzah Al-Khatib, 23, allegedly kept the deceased baby girl in a shoe box and then a freezer for multiple days, according to court documents released this week.
Al-Khatib was charged with obstruction of justice and failure to report a dead body.
Police were contacted after a woman called a local funeral home looking to plan services for her sister’s stillborn baby. The woman told the funeral home that the baby was in a freezer, the Indianapolis Star reported.
Authorities made arrangements with the funeral home to have the family bring the infant to the business. Al-Khatib and two other women, including her sister, arrived on Feb. 4 with the frozen baby wrapped in plastic in a cooler.
Al-Khatib, who was unmarried, told police she had kept her pregnancy a secret from her religious family.
The 23-year-old claimed she gave birth on Jan. 31 in her bathroom when she was around seven months pregnant. She said she realized the baby was stillborn when she was not crying or breathing.
According to police, Al-Khatib searched on her phone for “[baby] not crying after birth” and “what does an autopsy reveal.”
Al-Khatib said she then placed the baby in a shoe box for the next day and a half.
Her mother, Yafa Elmatari, told investigators she found the dead infant in Al-Khatib’s room and put the body in the garage freezer, according to news station RTV6.
An autopsy could not determine whether the baby was stillborn since the body was too decomposed.
Authorities have only charged Al-Khatib in the case.
“We’ve got a girl who went though something tragic and we want to resolve this in a fashion that helps everybody,” Al-Khatib’s defense attorney, Brady Lory, told WXIN.
Al-Khatib was released from jail earlier this month after posting $500 bail. Her trial is scheduled to begin on July 19.
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