A teen girl from Lakeland, Florida has been charged with aggravated child abuse and first-degree murder for choking her newborn to death. The baby and mother were still attached at the umbilical cord when the incident occurred. The teen, 14-year-old Cassidy Goodson, gave birth to a boy on September 19 in her home’s bathroom.
Goodson is a freshman in high school who reportedly used scissors to remove the baby from her body into the toilet. According to police, Goodson then took the baby out of the toilet and “placed her hands on the infant’s neck and squeezed until he wasn’t moving or breathing any longer.” The girl reportedly killed the child because she claims that she “didn’t know what to do with it.”
The girl’s mother, Teresa Goodson, “was in complete denial” about the pregnancy, according to Sheriff Grady Judd. Goodson would wear baggy clothing to hide the pregnancy from her family but two of her aunts suspected it. The girl showed her mother two pregnancy tests that were negative to prove she was not pregnant. The girl took the tests in private though, further complicating matters.
The Sheriff’s Office was notified of the discovery of a dead baby inside the Goodson home three days after it was born. Teresa Goodson found the baby in a shoe box when an odor was coming from Cassidy’s bedroom. Judd went on to say, “Let’s remember she is a child. Where was her support system?”