more information:
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cm...6820-41/swartout-police-sward-baby-family.csp
SPRINGFIELD — Angelica Swartout grew up with several dozen brothers and sisters who, like her, were adopted by a Springfield couple who turned an old church on 21st Street into their home.
But when it came time in October for the 23-year-old Swartout to become a mother, Springfield police say, she murdered her newborn son and disposed of his body in a trash bin while working alone at the front desk of a Gateway area motel.
Now, family members — whose doubts about Swartout’s original story regarding the baby’s death led to her arrest on Wednesday — say they want nothing more than to find her son’s body and give him a proper burial.
“I want to find my nephew,” Springfield resident Jewel Sward said. Like Swartout, Sward was adopted as a child by Dennis and RuthAnne Swartout.
“My first priority is to bring him home. He deserves better than this,” Sward said of the baby, whose mother named him Lucias Scott Swartout.
Investigators share Sward’s interest in finding the newborn’s body — both for the family’s sake, as well as for evidentiary reasons as Swartout’s murder case unfolds.
Police Sgt. David Lewis sounded less than optimistic about their chances, but said investigators will meet today to decide whether they should move ahead with what promises to be an incredibly difficult search of a 2-acre section of Short Mountain Landfill near Goshen.
“It seems pretty insurmountable, but we’re going to do everything we can to recover” the body, Lewis said. “This isn’t adding up”
Investigators say Swart*out, who is being held in the Lane County Jail on a charge of aggravated murder, admitted in an interview with them Wednesday that she killed her son on Oct. 18, shortly after giving birth to him while she worked a night shift at the motel.
Swartout told detectives that she wrapped her dead son’s body in a sheet and placed it in a trash bin outside the motel — then finished her shift and went home, Lewis said.
It’s a story that both police and Swartout’s family say they believe, even if the details are difficult to comprehend. “It’s one of those things you never understand,” Lewis said. “I don’t think normal people can understand this.”
Swartout, who was about nine months pregnant in October, initially told family members that her baby was stillborn at a local hospital, Lewis said.
Sward said that at first, she didnÂ’t suspect that the story was false.
But as SwartoutÂ’s behavior became more erratic during the past two months, Sward said she felt she needed to help her sister find closure in the babyÂ’s death.
Sward said she called Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend to inquire about the newborn, but was told they had no record of Swartout ever being admitted. Then on Monday, she spoke with a medical examiner who informed her that no autopsy of the baby was ever performed.
Sward said the medical examiner advised her to contact police, which she did.
“I didn’t hesitate to do it,” Sward said, recalling that when she spoke with Lewis on Tuesday, she told him, “I don’t know if this is a crime, but this isn’t adding up.”
Family still supportive
SwartoutÂ’s large adoptive family could not keep her from developing a methamphetamine habit that Lewis said continued through the early months of her pregnancy.
Although investigators believe that the babyÂ’s father did not remain in contact with Swartout after she became pregnant, they still want to locate and interview him, Lewis said.
Family members told police that while Swartout was apprehensive about becoming a mother upon learning of her pregnancy, she appeared to become more excited about it as her sonÂ’s birth neared. SwartoutÂ’s family held a baby shower for Swartout earlier this year.
Sward said she has about 70 siblings, most of whom were adopted during the past several decades by her mother — who continued taking in children from around the world after her first husband died and she remarried. RuthAnne and her second husband, Thomas Staley, moved from Springfield to Bend about four years ago, according to Staley’s father, a Goshen area resident.
Sward was one of six siblings who attended SwartoutÂ’s arraignment Thursday in Lane County Circuit Court. Swartout did not enter a plea or say a word during her court appearance. She will return to court sometime next week, pending the outcome of a grand jury investigation.
Sward said her family continues to support Swart*out despite the murder allegation.
“We love her and we want her to know that,” Sward said. “We also want her to know that we are seeking the truth. We’re grieving with love in our hearts for her, and sorrow for the position she’s put herself in.”
sad beyond words, A
