A mother going to any extent to protect her child is the stuff of legends. But a 28-year-old woman from Kirksville, Missouri, makes the notion to be re-written. Makuya Stephanie Kambamba was arrested by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Kirksville Police and the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office on Friday for intentionally drowning her newborn son in a toilet.
Giving Birth In A Restroom
The crime is said to have taken place in a restroom at the Smithfield Foods plant in Milan, Missouri where Kambamba works. She confessed to the authorities that on giving birth, she saw the baby moving with its face down in the toilet water, reported KTVO.
However, she is said to have taken to the seat again due to the distress caused by increased labor contractions. Kambamba did not check on the newly-born infant until a Smithfield nurse entered the room about thirty minutes later.
Charged With Manslaughter
An autopsy conducted on the infant's body by the Boone County Medical Examiner's Office suggested the cause of his death was indeed drowning. The 28-year-old now faces charges of first-degree involuntary manslaughter along with second-degree involuntary manslaughter and abuse or neglect of a child resulting in death.
She has been sent to the Daviess/DeKalb Regional Jail in Pattonsburg, Missouri after being processed at the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office in Milan on Friday. She is currently in custody without bond.
(Un)Motherly Love
This is not the first case of a mother being found guilty of killing her newborn in the US in recent times. In 2017, Brooke Skylar Richardson, an 18-year-old, from Ohio, secretly gave birth to a child, who she is said to have killed and buried in her parent's backyard, the Associated Press reported. However, in November 2019, at the age of 20, Richardson was acquitted of manslaughter and murder. She was convicted of gross abuse of a corpse and given probation and time served.
In August 2019, Camille Wasinger-Konrad, a 25-year-old from Colorado, was found guilty of killing her newborn girl baby, reported People. At the age of 23, she had smothered and killed the baby and tossed her into a neighbors backyard, where the remains of the infant were found 15 hours later. Wasinger-Konrad was convicted of first-degree murder after deliberation, position-of-trust murder charge and tampering with physical evidence.
