August 29, 2002 Posted: 10:02 AM EDT (1402 GMT)
MUNCIE, Indiana (AP) -- A high school honors student who kept her pregnancy
a secret allegedly let her premature baby drown in a bathtub and had her
boyfriend bury the child in an abandoned playground, police said.
Savanah Pyles, 18, was being held without bond Thursday in the Delaware
County Jail on a preliminary charge of murder.
Detectives searching the playground near Pyles' eastern Indiana home
Wednesday unearthed bones believed to be those of the infant allegedly
buried there a year ago. Police were awaiting analysis to identify the
remains.
According to arrest records, Pyles was 5 1/2 months pregnant when she gave
birth prematurely on August 24, 2001, in a bathtub at her home.
Pyles told police she left the baby girl in the water because she "was
afraid it might die anyway from injuries it suffered during child birth,"
according to the arrest records.
"You can't kill someone just because you think they are going to die,"
Police Capt. Robert Weller said.
After the baby died, police alleged Pyles placed the body in a plastic bag
and called her boyfriend, who buried the child in a nearby field that had
been the playground for an elementary school.
No one else apparently knew that Pyles, then 17, was pregnant.
Investigators contacted the baby's father this week after one of Pyles'
friends reported that Pyles recently told her about the baby's death. The
boy led police to where he said he buried the baby.
Police hadn't arrested the father. Weller said he's cooperated with police.