Police finish search of Md. mom's home By KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press Writer

Police finish search of Md. mom's home By KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 59 minutes ago



OCEAN CITY, Md. - Police on Wednesday finished a three-day search of the property of a woman accused of hiding four dead fetuses, but planned to monitor the home to prevent retaliation against her family.

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Investigators found no more human remains in the run-down home of Christy Freeman, 37, who is accused of causing her 26-week-old fetus to be stillborn last week.

Police searching for that fetus found the boy wrapped in a towel under Freeman's bathroom sink, plus two more sets of fetal remains wrapped in plastic in a bedroom trunk and a fourth in a Winnebago outside.

Police said they still haven't confirmed that the three additional sets of remains — all described as bones — belonged to Freeman or how or when they died, though all are thought to be pre-term babies.

Four investigators spent about three hours in the house Wednesday morning, loading at least eight brown paper bags into an evidence van. Ocean City police spokesman Barry Neeb said the bags contained potential evidence, but not human remains.

"Nothing they got was a surprise," he said without elaborating.

Freeman's longtime boyfriend, Raymond W. Godman Jr., and their four children were free to return to the home. Neeb said officers on patrol would come by the house frequently until further notice for the family's safety.

By late afternoon, someone had set up a roadside memorial on the family's lawn — a small, plastic angel and votive candle with a handwritten note in cursive script that read, "Pray all the unborn children. Rest gently in the Arms of God."

The allegations against Freeman have unsettled people in this beach resort town, which hasn't had a slaying in five years. Police say retaliation was the suspected motive in a case of vandalism earlier this week at the couple's taxi business in West Ocean City, where four classic cars had busted windows.

Neeb had said having an officer at the site was "the prudent thing to do given the high-profile nature of this case."

Freeman, who is being held without bail, was charged with murder under a state law that allows murder prosecutions of those who cause the death of a fetus that may have been able to survive outside the womb.

Freeman is awaiting grand jury indictment proceedings that have not yet been announced. She is being represented by a public defender, Burton Anderson, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Prosecutors and police concede it could take months to sort out all the physical evidence and determine what charges, if any, may be appropriate for Freeman.

Godman has not been charged with a crime. Police say they've interviewed him, but they couldn't share any explanations he may have given about Freeman's pregnancies.

Now investigators await word from the Maryland medical examiner's office to prove the fetuses were Freeman's. "She says they are. We don't have any reason to believe they're not," Neeb said.

The medical examiner's office told police that it was "conferring with other experts" and that further results shouldn't be expected before at least next week, Neeb said.

Neeb told reporters that there is little police and the county prosecutor can do until a lab analysis reveals more about the fetuses and how and when they died.

The prosecutor, Worcester County State's Attorney Joel Todd, told reporters Monday that authorities believe Freeman caused her baby to be stillborn last week. He refused comment Wednesday through an aide about additional possible charges.

The stillborn fetus found in the vanity was determined to be about 26 weeks old. Investigators still need to figure out how old the others were when they died, when they died, and whether Freeman or someone else was responsible for the deaths.

The timing is critical. If the pre-term infants were too young to be considered viable outside the womb, Freeman can't be charged with murder. And if they died before Maryland passed its 2005 fetal homicide law, it may not be a crime even if they were old enough to live outside the womb and Freeman caused their deaths.

The fetal homicide law was designed to penalize those who kill a pregnant woman or her viable fetus, but it includes a provision shielding pregnant women from prosecution for actions that result in the death of their own fetuses.

State Delegate Susan K. McComas, a Republican who co-sponsored the bill, said the exemption was added by majority Democrats who feared the bill would restrict a woman's right to abortion. "We weren't contemplating a woman doing something to her own fetus," McComas said.