Thread: Illegal Mother Who Killed Baby in Miami

This was on the front page of the Miami Herald this morning. The woman may have had a tough life back home but she is a baby killer. Why are they being so nice to her by worrying what happens when she gets out of jail? Is that because they will let her stay? SEND HER BACK TO GUATAMALA!

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ne ... 205818.htm

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IMMIGRATION
Mother's journey ends with charge of killing her babyA Guatemalan immigrant accused of murdering her newborn son in Miami-Dade County had fled rural poverty in her native country.
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com
LA CONCHA, GUATEMALA - Maria Pacheco's murder rap begins with a journey.

She hikes down the mountain, over macadamia nuts buried in the mud, past a gurgling river veiled by overgrown coffee plants and to her job on an isolated farm.

Here she sleeps with a man. He promises love but delivers bitterness.

Maria continues, a thousand miles across the Mexican desert and the U.S. border to a better job pulling weeds at a South Miami-Dade County nursery.

Here she gives birth to a baby boy.

Her journey is over for now. Maria, 27, sits in jail, accused of murdering her newborn.

Late last month, a Miami-Dade judge ruled Maria incompetent to stand trial because of her limited understanding of the U.S. legal system. She will be transferred to a state hospital to learn.

''We don't want her to think we've abandoned her,'' said her mother, Maria del Rosario. ``We don't want her to think she isn't welcome the day she comes out.''

Maria Pacheco ventured to America from a small village called La Concha, accessible only by foot or four-by-four truck.

The road to La Concha is about three bumpy miles up a mountain from the small town of San Juan Bautista, past looming banana trees, tiny waterfalls, and swarms of butterflies that dance at vistas overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

La Concha, however, is poor. The 100 families work the land, but many have left for the United States, especially after Hurricane Stan disrupted work last year.

Maria's family had lived in La Concha in a tiny brick and tin shack. Maria's father lives in another town.

''She was never poorly raised,'' her mother said. ``She was never a rebel. I never had a problem with her.''

At 20, Maria married a village man, Rodrigo Andrés Chang, and moved in with his family. She bore him a daughter, but they quarreled often.

''When they were kids, they loved each other,'' her mother said. ``He'd sleep here, even. But later, he didn't love her anymore after they had the child.''

But about five years ago, Andrés left for the United States and promised to send money. The family is still waiting, her mother said.

`SHE FELT ABANDONED'

Brooding and suffering from high blood pressure, the husky young woman returned to live with her mother. Maria took to the fields, picking coffee and macadamia nuts.

''She felt abandoned,'' her mother said. ``She talked about that it was going to be Christmas and she would be without her father and her husband.''

She worked at remote, distant farms. One was Finca Santa Christina -- only 10 families live there now -- an hour east by foot down a steep, muddy path.

Maria never spoke to her mother about a new love. His name was José Pérez.

She said she met José at Santa Christina in October 2005 and became intimate with him through that December.

Unhappiness gnawed at her.

''He had lied to me,'' Maria said later. ``He had told me that he loved me, but afterward he would go there where we lived and he started flirting with another woman there.''

And the poverty in Guatemala: Maria wanted to provide for Yennifer, her rambunctious, doe-eyed daughter, 5, whose pet cat is named Pacho.

She borrowed 50,000 quetzales (more than $7,000), the life savings of two neighbors, to pay a smuggler for passage to the United States.

A MONTH'S TRIP

In February, Maria and her friend, Eugenia Robles, left for the United States. It took one month to cross through Arizona, by foot and in the back of trucks.

The Border Patrol caught them. During a 10-day stint in detention, the medical staff screened Maria for diseases and gave her unsettling news.

She was pregnant.

Maria could not believe it. She had taken birth-control injections earlier and she was spotting, which she believed was her menstrual cycle.

But as in her previous pregnancy, some clues were unmistakable: Her feet began to swell. She confided her secret to Eugenia as they returned to Guatemala.

''She was going to see what she was going to do,'' Eugenia said later. ``I took that to mean that she didn't want to have the baby.''

Eugenia told her she would help her care for the baby. But Maria stayed quiet.

They returned to La Concha for about eight days, and Maria said nothing of her pregnancy, her family remembered. She also did not tell José Pérez.

Visited recently at the Finca Santa Christina, José first called Maria ''only a friend.'' Later, he admitted sleeping with her three times in the fields.

But José figured that was well before she ever got pregnant -- so it couldn't be his child.

Around Santa Christina, ''the other women would talk bad about her,'' José said. He said she had other relationships.

Undaunted, Maria left again for the United States.

Her mother, an evangelical Christian, would later say of her pregnancy: ``If I had known, I never would have let her go.''

By April, Maria and Eugenia had crossed the U.S. border successfully and moved in with 10 family members and friends in a town home in Homestead.

They worked pulling weeds and loading trailers at Costa Farms, 22290 SW 162nd St.

On the surface, Maria's story was the same as that of many rural workers in South Miami-Dade. Work was tough, but the money would deliver money and happiness to family members in Guatemala.

Maria called home, promising to send toys to Yennifer -- but privately, she believed that the new baby would suck her resources dry.

Eugenia insisted that she prepare for the child. She mentioned it to Maria's sister in Homestead and another relative.

They dismissed it -- Maria denies being pregnant, they said.

At work, it became clear that Maria did not want the baby.

`I'M NOT PREGNANT'

''She would jump from the trailers, all the way down, and she would put like belts on real tight, and she would lift heavy items, which she shouldn't do,'' Eugenia said.

You'll hurt the baby, Eugenia told her.

''Don't worry about it. Nothing's going to happen because I don't have anything. I'm not pregnant,'' Eugenia remembered her friend saying.

She also remembered something else Maria said: ``That she didn't want the baby. She wanted it to come out.''

On July 15, the pain starts subtly about 10 a.m. It is a Saturday, and Maria sheds her apron and gloves.

Maria's head begins to throb. She feels like vomiting and staggers to the restroom.

The two portable plastic toilets, each about three feet eight inches square, sit near an access road and several propane tanks used to heat plants in the winter.

Inside, her head throbs and she throws up. For about 15 minutes, Maria sits in the toilet, dilating. Maria, she later claims, does not realize she is giving birth.

Her son's head emerges. She hears crying and feels something hanging from her body.

The door remains closed, and in the stifling heat, Maria cannot yell for help. The boy, seven pounds, plunks into the water. Blood spatters the door and the inside of the half-used roll of toilet paper placed in the urinal.

''I was hearing that he was crying,'' she remembers later. ``I wanted to save him but I couldn't. My heart felt paralyzed.''

Maria emerges from the bathroom. Her eyesight goes dark. Someone appears, but she cannot tell who.

''Let's go get a trailer to load plants,'' a voice says. It is a supervisor.

Maria no longer hears the baby crying.

She does not tell her supervisor about the baby. Instead, Maria says she has backed-up menstruation.

''I thought who knows what they're going to do to me, and I was scared,'' she later tells Miami-Dade homicide detective Nick Pimentel.

AN EXPLANATION

Maria returns home, looking sickly and pale. She no longer appears pregnant. What did she do with the baby, Eugenia asks.

Not a birth, just hemorrhaging, Maria tells Eugenia.

The following Monday, Maria returns to the nursery. That evening, a worker finds the baby boy floating in human waste. His tongue and lungs are coated blue from the toilet water's chemical disinfectant.

Miami-Dade homicide detectives are dispatched, and news reports begin.

Suspicious, Eugenia asks Maria about the baby. She scolds her friend about fooling around with men. Eugenia urges her to visit a doctor.

''She denied it was her baby,'' Eugenia said.

On Tuesday night, detectives knock on Pacheco's door to arrest her.

The charge is first-degree murder.

I may send the writer of this article an e-mail for such an amazing attention to details. I will suggest he do a similar story about an American victim of a hideous crime committed by an illegal. The people should hear details about that, not sob stories of baby killers.

How many girls in this country have beleived the words of a silver tongued devil and been lied to? How many were living in an abusive home or delt with other physical abuse and figured a "nice guy" would help them out and got dumped as soon as they found out they were pregnant? They still have to pay the price. They act like surviving here is so easy for everyone and that people here just never have to deal with any hardships. All those hardships don't make someone not responsible for their actions.

I almost wish I hadn't read this story. I can't even begin to wrap my head around the horrific fate of that poor baby.

Later, he admitted sleeping with her three times in the fields.

Jeeze! Is there anything these farm workers won't do in the fields they work in?

Is there anything these farm workers won't do in the fields they work in?

I tell ya.....they run through the deserts, and are crammed like sardines in houses and yet nothing ever seems to spoil the "mood". That would be the last thing on my mind under those circumstances! I guess it's that old Puritan ethic I can't shake.

Did anyone catch the fact that two "poor" villagers had $7,000 in cash to give to this woman buy a ticket on the smugler express? That is far more than many Americans could get their hands on.

Originally Posted by Steve

Did anyone catch the fact that two "poor" villagers had $7,000 in cash to give to this woman buy a ticket on the smugler express? That is far more than many Americans could get their hands on.

Yeah, I saw that too Steve.
If I had seven grand I would be dancing in the streets.
I also don't care what kind of a sob story she has to tell, it does not take away the fact that she let her own baby die.
And they called me a baby killer when I was in the Marines, where the hell is the outrage over something like this?

You have an excellent, descriptive writing style. Now, please change the name of the "mother" from "Maria" to "Susan". Change the "home town" from somewhere in Guatemala to somewhere in very rural Appalachia a few years ago.

Why does this illegal immigrant get such prosaic coverage of her "unfortunate situation" when "Susan" would simply be charged, prosecuted and jailed with no attention paid to her sorry lot in life.

Susan Smith drowns her kids and she's a "monster". Maria kills her newly born child and she's a "victim of her circumstances". I think not!!!

Curious to see if I hear back from him.

Originally Posted by greyparrot

Later, he admitted sleeping with her three times in the fields.

Jeeze! Is there anything these farm workers won't do in the fields they work in?

How about eat the food that comes out of those fields? I bet they don't do that.

Originally Posted by Steve

Did anyone catch the fact that two "poor" villagers had $7,000 in cash to give to this woman buy a ticket on the smugler express? That is far more than many Americans could get their hands on.

You read my mind I could not put my hands on $7,000 and these people are considered poor