Newborn death charges dropped for Md. mom

Charges were dropped Wednesday against a woman accused of killing her newborn child in 2004 and keeping other sets of fetal remains around her home.

Prosecutor Joel Todd asked a grand jury Wednesday to dismiss the murder charges against Christy Freeman, said Barry Neeb, an Ocean City Police spokesman.

Neeb said the dismissal came because of insufficient evidence after a medical examiner's report.

"They decided that they were not going to hand down any charges, any indictments on Christy Freeman based on the evidence submitted," he said. "There are no charges pending or anticipated."

Freeman had been held without bond since July, when she went to a hospital with heavy bleeding and doctors discovered she'd recently given birth. Investigators found the baby — and three more sets of tiny human remains — at Freeman's house in Ocean City.

Details of charges
Freeman was originally charged with killing her unborn fetus in July, but those charges were later dropped after an autopsy showed that fetus was stillborn. Prosecutors later charged her with killing one of two children found in a trunk in the living room. The charge accused her of giving birth to twins on the toilet in 2004 and allowing one of them to die. That was the charge dismissed Wednesday.

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Officials at the Worcester County jail could not immediately say whether Freeman, a 37-year-old taxi driver, had been released. Todd, the prosecutor, did not return calls for comment Wednesday. He planned to hold a news conference Thursday about the case.

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Kimberlee Schultz, a spokeswoman for Freeman's lawyer, public defender Burton Anderson, said the defense was not surprised charges were dropped.

"She's always maintained her innocence, so we're happy," Schultz said. At her first court appearance on July 30, Freeman pleaded not guilty and told a judge, "I want to clear my name in this case."

Anderson was out of town Wednesday, and Schultz did not know Freeman's whereabouts.