Baby's corpse thrown out with N.J. hospital's trash

[January 07, 2009]  JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) -- Police searched garbage dumps in New Jersey and Pennsylvania on Tuesday for the body of a baby apparently thrown out with the trash at a Jersey City hospital sometime in the past two weeks.

"It's like they treated my son like he's nothing," said Kalynn Moore, the 26-year-old mother. "It hurts so bad."

Moore gave birth to Bashere Davon Moyd Jr. at Christ Hospital on Dec. 21, about a month before her due date. Her cousin Nicia Royster said she went with a nurse that day to place the corpse into the hospital's morgue.

Hospital officials went to Moore's Jersey City home on Jan. 2 and told her that a funeral home had come to pick up the remains, but they could not be found.

Police say the body was discarded in the trash, but they do not know when. The hospital has not officially said the baby was thrown in the trash but didn't dispute the police statement.

A spokeswoman for Christ Hospital said the institution is praying for the baby's family. But the family and the hospital disagree over whether Bashere was born alive.

Hospital spokeswoman Barbara Davey said in a statement that the baby was stillborn.

Moore, who has a 5-year-old son, said at a news conference Tuesday at her lawyer's office that she was in and out of consciousness in the minutes after the 5-pound boy was born. But she says the baby was born alive and that she held him briefly before doctors spent more than 20 minutes trying to stabilize the baby's heart rate before he died.

News of the case was first reported Tuesday in The Jersey Journal.

The issue of whether the child was born alive could come into play if there's a lawsuit because New Jersey law does not consider a stillborn a person. There is no birth certificate and no death certificate, and the only known photo of the child was taken after he had died.

Moore's lawyer, Michael Anise, said a lawsuit is likely and that there is no reason that a body of a baby -- born alive or not -- should be placed in the trash.

He said he's hoping the body can be found so that Moore can bury her child and so an autopsy can be conducted.

Anise also said he's asked the hospital to provide any surveillance videos that might show what happened.

"We are not at this point ruling out anything," he said. "The circumstances are so bizarre."

Police do not consider the case to be a criminal investigation, but it could become one, said Stan Eason, spokesman for Jersey City police.

[Associated Press; By GEOFF MULVIHILL]

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