A 19-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman from Pennsylvania have been arrested and charged with killing their newborn baby boy by letting him bleed to death less than a day after birth and then throwing his body out of their second-story window.
Joshua Coleman Wooters and Emily Jane Dickinson were arrested this week and charged with one count of criminal homicide, conspiracy, concealing the death of an infant, and abuse of a body in connection with the death of the boy in March 2024. Court records that Law&Crime looked at show that the charges are serious.
Wooters was also charged with a second minor count of blocking a police officer from doing their job.
A news release from the Pennsylvania State Police says that around 8:45 a.m. on March 11, troopers were called to the area of McConnellsburg Borough, Pennsylvania, which is about 160 miles west of Philadelphia, to find a dead male baby in the street near the intersection of Lincoln Way and North 2nd Street.
When first rescuers got to the scene, they found the baby victim about 20 feet north of the intersection. A trash bag with a bloody mattress, a placenta, and several disposable items was found next to the body of the little boy, who was declared dead at the scene.
ABC affiliate WHTM in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, got more court papers that gave more information about the investigation that led to the arrests of Wooters and Dickinson.
According to the report, the Fulton County Coroner’s Office found that the baby had been born less than 24 hours before and was about 36 or 37 weeks along in its pregnancy. An autopsy later showed that the baby died of “exsanguination from the umbilical stump,” which means that it lost a lot of blood.
A trooper asked people in the neighborhood for information about the victim and talked to Wooters. The teen denied knowing anything about the baby, according to WHP, a CBS station in Harrisburg.
As part of their investigation, cops went to Wooters and Dickinson’s apartment. From their second-floor window, they can see where the child was found. Wooters denied knowing anything about the baby again when police talked to him on April 1. He said he was a virgin and had never even had “S-E-X,” writing the word out instead of saying it, according to the Law&Crime.
On April 3, troopers carried out a search warrant at the couple’s apartment in the 100 block of Lincoln Way W. They allegedly found blood in the bedroom and bathroom. It was also said that the flat had several windows that looked out over the area where the baby was found.
Police said Wooters said Dickinson “picked up the baby like someone would pick up dog poop” and cut the umbilical cord with a kitchen knife, but forgot to clamp it back up afterward, according to the Daily Voice. He then said Dickinson went to the bathroom window and threw the child from the second floor to the ground below.
Wolfers said that he yelled at Dickinson, “What the f— did you do?” after seeing the baby being thrown out the window. He then put the mattress and other things in a trash bag and threw it out the same window. They didn’t both call 911.
It was said that DNA tests proved the baby victim was indeed the child of Wooters and Dickinson.
It was found on Dickinson’s phone that she looked up pregnancy-related topics on the internet, like “abortion law” and “home birth how long does the bleeding last.”
The couple is being held in the Bedford County Jail right now. All three of them were turned down for bond because they could each get life in jail.
