ST. GEORGE (AP) — A homeless woman has been bound over for trial on a charge of first-degree felony murder in the death from unknown cause of her infant son.
Rebekah Jolynn Woods, 35, also is charged with abuse and desecration of a body for abandoning the baby's body at the Fiesta Family Fun Center earlier this year, charges say. After hearing three hours of testimony Monday, 5th District Judge James L. Shumate ordered Woods to stand trial.
Paul Dame, chief deputy Washington County attorney, contended Woods showed depraved indifference in refusing to accept help from police officers, The Dove Center and paramedics.
He contended she knew the baby was sick and that he was a crack baby and she still did not get any medical help.
Defense attorney Keith Barnes, a public defender, said Woods wanted her privacy, but when officers asked her name she told the truth.
"She was candid with the fact that she was pregnant, she was candid with the fact that her water had broke," he said.
Witnesses testified Woods arrived in St. George Jan. 17 and gave birth Jan. 18 in a motel room. She panhandled at a local shopping center and accepted money, food and rides from people.
Woods' 2-year-old daughter was with her at the time.
Witnesses said Woods told them she was looking for Michael Mast, who she said had agreed to let her stay with him.
Mast said he met Woods two months earlier when he picked her up hitchhiking in Las Vegas. He brought her to St. George and let him stay with him for a few days, Mast said.
Mast testified someone from his church contacted him Jan. 18, telling him where Woods was and that she was looking for him.
He went to her motel room and asked if she needed any help. She asked him to get her a bucket, which he brought the next morning.
By the time he returned, Woods had given birth and was breast-feeding the baby. He said Woods told him that when she woke up Jan. 23, she saw that the boy was dead.
He said he took them home and they stayed with him 10 days.
Police Detective Troy Porter said Woods told him that when she first saw the Fiesta Fun Center, she thought it would be a good place to leave her baby so someone would find him and take care of him.
He said Woods told him that when she woke up Jan. 23, she saw that the boy was dead.
Shumate ruled Woods was competent to stand trial after she had refused for months to talk to doctors.