Tuesday, August 31, 1999

Baby found in trash had lived

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Butler Co. woman held without bond

BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Butler County sheriff's deputies lead Carin Marie Madden into court Monday to face a murder charge. (Dick Swaim photo) | ZOOM |

        The Butler County infant who was found dead in a garbage truck was a full-term, healthy baby who had taken her first breaths before being smothered, Coroner Richard P. Burkhardt said Monday.

        “This baby was alive, and the cause of death is due to suffocation by plastic bag,” he said, noting the baby girl weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces. “The lungs were filled with air, and there was air in the stomach.”

        Sheriff's Maj. Anthony Dwyer said the Wayne Township woman accused of killing the baby, Carin Marie Madden, 20, “confessed to giving birth to the child earlier in the week.” Ms. Madden, he said, told police the baby was born Aug. 23, but he declined to say where the body was kept until it was put out for the trash collector.

        A Rumpke refuse truck operator spotted the child's tiny foot and leg in the back of his truck Saturday morning, then called police.

        “There is no way anybody would've ever, ever known this if it weren't for the Rumpke driver,” said sheriff's Detective Sgt. Mike Craft, who was at the scene Saturday. “When you walked up to the truck and looked inside, it was not obvious. You really had to look to see it.”

        In Oxford Monday, Ms. Madden stood before Butler County Area I Court Judge Rob Lyons as he told her she was accused of murder and ordered her held without bond at least until a hearing sThursday. The judge said he would appoint an attorney to represent her.

        Ms. Madden, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, a belly chain, handcuffs and leg chains, was led from the courtroom with her head bowed and her long blond hair draped alongside her face.

        Five supporters sat in Judge Lyons' courtroom looking forlorn.

        Outside the courthouse, only her father, Gary Madden, agreed to speak with reporters. He said family members not only were astounded to learn that police accused Ms. Madden of killing her infant, but that she had apparently kept her pregnancy a secret.

        “She hides it real well. She did before,” Mr. Madden said, explaining that his daughter bore a child when she was 15. Authorities took the first baby from her — unfairly, he felt — and that experience “messed her up. ... She hasn't been the same since,” he said.

        A tear escaped from behind his dark sunglasses and ran down the burly man's face as he said, “She absolutely would not hurt a fly. ... I know my kid. She's a great kid.”

        He described his daughter as a quiet, hard-working young woman who “didn't even date.” She graduated from Edgewood High School two years ago and was working for a mail-order catalog business, whose name he didn't recall. Ms. Madden also helped build the rustic-looking home she shared with her parents in the 5600 block of Jacksonburg Road. Located at the end of a winding dirt lane, the home is just south of Jacksonburg, whose sign proclaims it is the state's smallest incorporated village, population 52.

        The hub of the town is Marcum's Carry-Out, at Jacksonburg and Oxford-Middletown roads.

        Store clerk Linda Stoffregen said she enjoyed talking to Ms. Madden, and remembers she used to ride a motorized bicycle to the store. “I liked Carin,” she said. “She seemed like a strong-willed girl. She just seemed like she knew what she was doing.”

        The Rumpke employee had driven his garbage truck only about two- tenths of a mile north of Ms. Madden's home when he noticed that the infant's leg had poked through a garbage bag. It was visible in a narrow slot, about 6 inches wide, police said.

        “He acted appropriately and we're proud of the way he acted,” said Jeff Rumpke, a district manager who declined to release the employee's name Monday. “Emotionally, he's still pretty shook up by it.”

       

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