Man Threw Bag Containing Baby’s Body In Connecticut Reservoir To Help Girlfriend Conceal Birth

A man who threw a stillborn baby’s body wrapped in a plastic bag into a reservoir was charged Friday in a Connecticut courtroom. Benjamin Edgerly, 21, is facing conspiracy charges, and ill disposal of a dead body for tossing the baby’s body in that reservoir.

Edgerly told Connecticut State Police that he wanted to help his girlfriend dispose of her stillborn baby boy in an attempt to conceal the baby’s birth. The bag that contained the tiny lifeless body of the infant was found in that reservoir back on March 21 by Bristol Water Department workers. The workers made the disturbing discovery the morning after Edgerly had disposed of the baby’s remains in that reservoir a little before midnight on March 20, reports Fox News.

The unnamed mother, 19, gave birth to the baby at her grandparents home on March 13. She told state police that she “knew something was off” after the baby was born. According to the warrant, the mother told police the following.

“The baby’s umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck; he wasn’t crying, his lips were bluish and his skin a slight purple. I panicked. I had done this completely alone.”

She told police that after the baby was born, she tried to clean the baby up and then wrapped him in a towel, and from there she went to sleep. She apparently delivered the baby on her own at the home of her grandparents. The next morning, she placed the baby’s body in a box and hid that box in her grandparent’s basement.

She said she endured nightmares, she couldn’t eat, and she couldn’t sleep, which brought her to a to a point where she was having a hard time functioning. She knew she had to do something about the baby in that box. This is when she turned to Edgerly for help and the two concocted the idea of disposing of the baby’s body in the reservoir.

The warrant describes how on March 19 she put the baby’s body in a white trash bag and then placed that bag into her boyfriend’s book bag. According to reports, it was Edgerly who allegedly told the police that he took the bag and just before midnight, he disposed of it in the reservoir in Harwinton, which is a small town about 24 miles west of Hartford.

According to local Fox News, the warrant indicated that the two engaged in text messages, “which conspired to conceal the birth of the infant and dispose of its body, so as to conceal their own identities.”

The text messages revealed that Edgerly told the baby’s mother to “wear gloves,” when she bagging up the baby. Edgerly told police, “I didn’t know what to do with the baby. So I pulled over and tossed him into the water.”

When the mother and Edgerly learned that the baby’s body was found, they went to the Bristol Police to tell them what had happened. The baby had been a stillborn, according to the medical examiner after he performed an autopsy on the infant’s remains.

The DNA of the baby was matched to the 19-year-old mother, but the baby’s DNA did not match Edgerly, according to what was reported in the warrant.

Back in March News Channel 8, WTNH reported on the location where the baby’s body was found. They report the infant’s remains were in a plastic bag in Bristol Reservoir #4, near Route 72. The baby boy had been born approximately 1-2 weeks before the body was found.

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