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Texas girl killed her newborn in school restroom by trying to flush it

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By The Associated Press | Thursday, April 3, 2008 11:14 PM CDT | () comments

   BAYTOWN, Texas — A 14-year-old girl gave birth in a restroom at her junior high, and the baby boy cried once before she tried to flush him down the toilet, killing him, officials said Thursday.

   An autopsy confirmed the baby was alive when born Wednesday at Cedar Bayou Junior High in Baytown, near Houston. The boy was probably full term and cried before the mother, an eighth-grader, tried to flush him, said police Lt. Eric Freed.

   The mother was taken to a hospital. People who knew her at school said she wore baggy clothing, and nobody suspected she was pregnant, The Houston Chronicle reported Thursday.

   School officials learned of her pregnancy when another student who was in the restroom while the eighth-grader was in labor went to ask the school nurse for help, said Kathy Clausen, spokeswoman for Baytown's Goose Creek school district.

   The nurse and an assistant principal ran to the bathroom, discovered the girl had given birth and called 911.

   Authorities have not announced what charges the girl will face, if any. Killing an infant is a capital crime in Texas, but 14-year-olds are too young to be eligible for the death penalty, said Geoffrey Corn, an assistant professor at South Texas College of Law.

   The infant died just three days after another 14-year-old girl delivered a stillborn fetus in the bathroom of an airplane on her way back to Houston from a middle-school field trip.

   Baytown is about 25 miles east of Houston.