A woman has been charged with second-degree murder after giving birth to a baby who was discovered dead inside a portable toilet in Gretna.
Police were dispatched to a Waffle House on the West Bank Expressway shortly after 3 a.m. on March 26 when 37-year-old Lakesha Lemelle entered the eatery and informed witnesses that she had given birth nearby.
According to authorities, Lemelle led officers to a portable toilet at a nearby construction site, where they discovered her newborn son inside. The baby, subsequently called Jeremiah by relatives, was declared deceased.
An autopsy revealed that Jeremiah was a full-term baby weighing around 7 pounds, 2 ounces. According to investigators, he was born alive and died of suffocation from drowning.
On Thursday, a Jefferson Parish grand jury indicted Lemelle for second-degree murder.
Her arraignment, which was planned for Friday, was postponed because Lemelle refused to leave the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center, where she was being kept, according to court documents, NOLA.com reports. She is now set to appear in court on Monday.
Authorities believe Lemelle was homeless and not from the New Orleans area. According to NOLA.com, relatives told a nonprofit that helped prepare Jeremiah’s burial that they hadn’t seen Lemelle in years and had no idea she was pregnant.
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