Woman hides dead baby in Christian boarding school

[rikkitikkitavi]

The LA Times has a story about a woman who hid her pregnancy from everyone, eventually giving birth to a baby in secret. The baby is supposed to have died because she didn't feed it; the woman then supposedly hid the body in a laundry basket at the school where she was working. What makes this story particularly interesting to us FJ-ers is that the school in question is a "Christian boarding school for troubled teens."

 

Here's the story: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2 ... death.html.

 

The Christian reform school is called Julian Youth Academy in Shasta county, California. Has anyone heard of this place? I wonder if the woman herself had been a student there once and was then hired to work there. Based on what I've read here and elsewhere, I think it's a fairly common practice for Christian reform schools to hire their own "reformed" graduates. In any case, I can't help but wonder if at least some of her behavior is the result of being enmeshed in Christian fundamentalist culture (the school definitely sounds fundie from the descriptions I could find online from "survivors").

[Deleted12]

That's my neck of the woods.

Here are other articles with different details:

http://www.redding.com/news/2011/nov/08 ... er-infant/

http://www.redding.com/news/2011/nov/09 ... f-newborn/

One of the early articles says "The employee who called authorities reported other employees had said they found the baby Friday evening. The baby appeared not to be fully developed and one of its arms was disfigured, sheriff’s logs said."

[rikkitikkitavi]

Here's a description of practices at the school from a survivor: http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php?title ... th_Academy. It also includes links to other relevant pages.

From what I can tell, the school used to be located near San Diego and was then only for "troubled" girls. After the building burned down in 2007, they appear to have started a new school, this time for boys as well, in northern California.

One thing struck me in the former student's description: "Newcomers live with an oldcomer called a buddy, who function as junior staff if the newcomer tries to run away." Hmm.... I wonder if the woman who hid her baby was one such "buddy."

[rikkitikkitavi]

Thanks for the other news articles, AthenaC.

Guess what?! I was right in my surmise: "At 17 she entered the Julian Youth Academy and stayed on as an employee after graduating, he said" (from AthenaC's link). I just can't believe I simply guessed that. It looks like all of these Christian reform schools operate by the same playbook. Ugh!