http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15078256.htm

Posted on Thu, Jul. 20, 2006


SOUTH MIAMI-DADE
Murder suspect hid pregnancy
A native of Guatemala, Maria Eugenia Pacheco came to Homestead to earn money. Now she's behind bars, accused of murdering her newborn baby.
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com

Abandoned by her husband years ago, her remote Guatemalan village shattered by a hurricane, Maria Eugenia Pacheco traveled for weeks by bus to reach the United States, hoping to earn money for her young daughter back home.

Nobody knew she was pregnant.

Her family held suspicions, but they were not confirmed until Miami-Dade homicide detectives knocked on the family's door.

Then they charged her with murder.

Investigators say Pacheco, 27, gave birth three months' prematurely Monday, leaving the newborn to drown inside a portable toilet at the Goulds nursery where she worked.

In the country only three months, Pacheco on Wednesday was charged with second-degree murder.

''Nobody knew. She never told anybody she was pregnant,'' her sobbing mother, Maria del Rosario, 48, said in Spanish by phone from the Guatemalan highlands town of San Juan Bautista.

Pacheco's brother-in-law, Marco Mejia, said she told a live-in friend that she had passed out inside the portable bathroom. It was not known what Pacheco told detectives.

Pacheco was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center and will appear in bond court this morning.

Pacheco came to work every morning at 7:30 a.m. at Costa Nursery Farms, a 600-acre wholesale nursery along an isolated road in deep South Miami-Dade.

Monday evening, Pacheco arrived home as usual, her brother-in-law said.

But at the nursery, an employee went to use one of two portable toilets in the rear of the property and discovered the baby, police said.

On Tuesday, an autopsy revealed that the baby boy had drowned.

''The baby was alive at the time of birth,'' said Miami-Dade Detective Alvaro Zabaleta, a police department spokesman.

Detectives did not disclose how they tracked down the mother's identity. On Tuesday night, they visited her bare Homestead town house, which she shares with her sister and 10 other migrant workers.

Pacheco was born and raised in the southwest Guatemalan province of Suchitepéquez, where many villagers still speak the native dialect of Quiche.

While her bronze skin and round face belie her Maya ancestors, she speaks only Spanish.

She was married once and bore a daughter.

Several years ago, her husband left her to come to the United States, but exactly where is unknown. Pacheco lived with her siblings and parents in a tiny one-room home, and her only work was taking care of her daughter, now 5.

''She was very lonely. We were here, of course, but she had no [man] to take care of her,'' said her mother, del Rosario.

In October, the winds and floods of Hurricane Stan obliterated much of the highlands. The agricultural jobs in San Juan Bautista disappeared. Many people left to try their luck in the United States.

About four months ago, Pacheco did likewise. She never professed to having a boyfriend in San Juan, her family said, and it is unclear who the father of the dead baby was.

''I wouldn't have let her come if I had known,'' her mother said of her pregnancy. ``It's a sin.''

To pay her way, Pacheco borrowed 48,000 quetzales, or about $6,400. Her journey took about 20 days on buses through Mexico and across the dusty border in Arizona.

After a few days in Los Angeles, she traveled four days by bus to reach South Florida, her belongings stuffed inside a single backpack.

Once in South Florida, she dreamed of returning to Guatemala with enough money to support her family. She worked eight-hour shifts at the nursery. A friend picked her up every morning.

In recent months, speculation in Guatemala had made it back to family in South Florida. They confronted her:

¿Estas embarasada? Are you pregnant?

No, she maintained, and her belly did not appear overly swollen.

''We wanted to know, because it would be important to get her help,'' said Mejia, her brother-in-law.

Police said Pacheco went to great lengths to conceal her pregnancy.

Monday night, after Pacheco had returned home from work, an item flashed on the TV news about a newborn found dead at the same nursery where she worked.

Mejia asked Pacheco if she was involved. No, she insisted.