Mother arrested after discovery of seven dead newborns in garage (PHOTO)

• Posted on April 14, 2014April 14, 2014
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

A Utah woman is believed by police to have killed SEVEN of her own children over the past 10 years.

Megan Huntsman, 39, of Pleasant Grove, secretly gave birth to the infants, killed them and then stuffed their tiny bodies into boxes stored in the garage, police said.

The skeletons in Huntsman’s closet were exposed Saturday by her ex-husband who was cleaning out the garage of a home they shared until 2011, a police source told the Salt Lake Tribune.

Huntsman moved out that year after what neighbors told Fox 13 was a substance abuse problem.

The former spouse was removing boxes from the garage in preparation of moving back into the home, which is owned by his parents, when he discovered one of the boxes.

Ex-husband Darren West discovered the dead baby after he and another person helping him came across a box that smelled really bad, according to Fox 13

They opened the box to find what they determined to be a dead infant and called police.

He called 911, and authorities obtained a search warrant that led them to six more dead babies packed into small boxes, authorities said.

A police official has called the investigation ’emotionally draining,’ and said both he and other grizzled veterans are ‘just shocked’ at what they’ve uncovered.

Investigators have also searched her home in nearby West Valley City, the station reported.

‘I’m still in a state of shock,’ neighbor Aaron Hawker. told Fox 13. ‘We were wondering what the heck is going on,’ he added when asked about seeing the police cars streaming onto the normally quiet street.

Investigators haven’t said whether they believe Huntsman is the mother of all the dead infants, but they have publicly confirmed a 39-year-old woman is in custody for the killings.

The exact causes of death for each infant have also not been made public.

The ex-husband is believed to be the father of at least some of the babies, but DNA testing will be needed to confirm. He is not considered a suspect in any of the deaths, cops said.

‘We don’t believe he had any knowledge of the situation,’ a police official said.

When asked how West was unaware of the pregnancies while living with the woman, the official replied ‘that’s the million-dollar question. Amazing.’

West’s family issued a statement Sunday saying they are in a ‘state of shock and confusion.’

‘We are mourning this tragic loss of life and we are trying to stay strong and help each other through this awful event,’ the statement said before asking for privacy.

Hawker is amazed she was able to hide the pregnancies from the community.

‘She always looked kind of slim, I mean, to have this many babies full term, it’s like… Where were they?’

Littered: Things were strewn about the yard Sunday afternoon after police took all the evidence they needed

He and Huntsman have three other daughters that are luckily still alive, the oldest being 20 and the youngest only 13-years-old, a neighbor told the paper.

Ex-husband Darren West was absent from the home after conviction on drug distribution charges led to a nine-year prison sentence. He appealed it multiple times and ended up only serving from 2006 to 2008.

It is not clear if any of the babies found dead were fathered during that time.

Huntsman has no prior criminal record outside of a 2011 traffic violation, records showed. Neighbor Kathie Hawker told Fox 13 the mother of three left the home that year while battling a ‘substance abuse problem.’

‘It makes us so sad, we want to cry,’ she lamented. ‘We enjoyed having them as a neighbor. This has just blown us away.’

The neighbor said she saw the suspected serial baby killer gain and lose weight over the years, but never thought she was pregnant, and that she even called on Huntsman to watch on her infant grandson a few times.

‘She took good care of him. She was good. This really shocks me.’

Huntsman has been charged with six counts of murder. She is now in her own little box behind bars in the Utah County Jail

-DailyMail