In October 2014 rumours started about university student Emile Weaver.
She’s pregnant they whispered in the hallways.
See the way she carries herself.
She’s definitely pregnant.
The rumours gathered pace by January when the other young women who lived alongside her at the college noticed she was wearing baggier clothing, always holding a pillow or a stuffed teddy over her stomach.
By March some of the students were actively looking for proof she was pregnant.
They just knew.
Emile Weaver, Via MySpace.
Emile Weaver, aged 20, denied the rumours but the other girls talked anyway.
But it wasn’t until April 22 2015 that the truth was finally, brutally, revealed.
In the early morning of April 22nd it was still dark around 7.30am when Moriah Saer, who attended Muskingum University in Ohio in the US and lived alongside Emile at the Delta Gamma Theta sorority house, woke to use the bathroom.
It was still dark and as she went downstairs she was surprised to hear three short sharp noises.
"It sounded like a dying cat," she said. "Then three or four cries ... each about three seconds."
She went to investigate but the only light on was a small one coming out from under the toilet door.
"I just assumed someone was on their phone in the bathroom playing a game or something," she told a packed courtroom.
Muskingum University in Ohio. Via Facebook.
What it is now believed that Moriah Saer heard was the sound of Emile Weaver’s baby. The first and last sounds the newborn would make before Weaver tied her in a garbage bag and placed her outside with the bins.
Shortly after Sear returned to her room other young women emerged to use the bathroom.
They noticed the toilet was covered in spots of blood on the lid, seat and under the seat. A group text went out to all of the members from the house manager, advising the person responsible to clean it.
The text read, in part: "It looks like a murder scene."
It was.
Yesterday Emile Weaver was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her newborn daughter reports NCB4I.
She was found guilty of aggravated murder, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.
Emile Weaver was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her newborn daughter. Via NCB4I
Her newborn daughter, she since named Addison, was found by two of her housemates later on the night of April 22nd.
Elise Zimmerman testified that she and another girl found a garbage bag on the ground, next to the bin by the side of the house. Zimmerman said she picked up the bag.
"Something wasn't right," she said. "It was heavy."
Zimmerman said she and the other girl ripped a hole in the bag, which was tied up, and the other girl saw what she thought was a baby's foot.
"I looked in after her and saw the same thing," Zimmerman said.
They told other sorority members what they found, then Zimmerman went back and opened the bag further, seeing the baby's remains.
"I collapsed and started crying," she said.
Prosecutors claimed that during her pregnancy Weaver was aware she was pregnant and never intended to keep the baby.
Prosecutors claimed that during her pregnancy Weaver was aware she was pregnant and never intended to keep the baby. Via Inside Edition
In September 2014 she had visited a campus health clinic for contraception. As part of the procedure she underwent a mandatory pregnancy test, it came back positive.
Sarah Dickson, who was a nurse at the center said she left voicemails, wrote emails and sent text messages to Weaver to tell her to come in again to discuss her test results, but she said she did not hear from her at all.
She says that two weeks later she sent a message to Weaver stating a certified letter detailing Weaver's results would be coming unless she came into the center.
The letter was sent. Weaver signed for it and received it.
Weaver was arrested in April. Via County Sheriffs.
The court heard that in January Weaver smoked marijuana and drank alcohol to celebrate someone's birthday reports NBC.
Sorority members who saw Weaver throughout the day April 22, in between the baby's birth and when the infant was found, described her as blank and unemotional saying that Weaver told them she was not feeling well.
She did a pregnancy test in September. Via MySpace.
In a taped interview played at Weaver’s trial Thursday she told detectives that the baby was born alive, was moving slightly and made some noise that morning in the bathroom.
She had noticed those things she said, but her attention was not on the baby girl. Weaver said there was more blood than she thought there should have been, and she was worried about her own health.
“I didn’t have concern with the baby,” Weaver said “I was more concerned with my well-being and taking care of myself" reports The Columbus Dispatch.
Weaver said she cut the baby’s umbilical cord with a knife from the sorority house's kitchen, then put the baby and the placenta in the garbage, and placed the bag of garbage outside.
Weaver then sent text messages hours after she gave birth but before the baby was found, to the boy she thought was the father to tell him the baby was "taken care of."
"No more baby," on text read and then "taken care of."
The judge said she showed no remorse. Via NBC4i
In sentencing her the judge said "That was probably the most truthful statement you made that day. It was an inconvenience, and you took care of it."
Tragically an eight minute walk may have been all that it took to save the life of Weaver’s daughter.
Since 2001 Ohio, where Weaver attended college, has had a Safe Haven law, meaning that mothers are protected from prosecution if they leave their baby at a fire station or with a police officer or hospital worker within 30 days of the child's birth as long as the baby exhibits no signs of abuse.
If Emile’s baby, later named Addison had been taken to the nearest police station, just an eight minute walk Weaver would not be prosecuted and Addison may be alive today.
The sorority house where Weaver lived.
The judge said that Addison was not the only victim of Weaver's actions.
He cited the other young women who lived at the college with Weaver.
Several have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorders, and some have started using alcohol to cope.
One of Weaver's’ sorority sisters’, Moriah Saer, who testified during the trial that she woke early and heard the baby crying wrote a letter to Addison, apologising for what happened to her. She wrote that Addison will always be in her heart.
"She wishes she'd broken down the door," The judge said, though at the time Saer did not know what the ‘cat like’ noises she hard were.
The judge in sentencing Weaver said that mothers are supposed to protect and nurture their children. But Weaver repeatedly fell on her stomach, took pills to end her pregnancy, drank alcohol, and, ultimately, threw her baby in the garbage.
"You tried over and over to take that baby's life," he said.
Weaver, who appeared in court pale and gaunt said she would appeal her life sentence.
For help: Lifeline 13 11 14. Kid's Helpline: 1800 55 1800.
Top Comments
i was 14, my son is now 18, in Uni, and doing well, at that age, i was old enough to consider all my options, and choose what worked for me, no excuses, i am pro choice, but you do not get to end a life, once you give birth, that is a feeling human child, so selfish, who cares what people think, give the child up for adoption if you don't want/can't care for it, The tiny life is not yours to take.
Can't say I feel any sympathy for her plight.