A 14-year-old is accused of choking her newborn to death while the baby was still attached to her by the umbilical cord.

Cassidy Goodson of Lakeland, Fla., is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, according to the Ledger.

Goodson gave birth to a boy in the bathroom of her home on Sept. 19, ABC News reports.

Police say the high school freshman ultimately used scissors to pry the baby out of her body and into the toilet. Lifting the baby out of the toilet, Goodson "placed her hands on the infant's neck and squeezed until he wasn't moving or breathing any longer," according to a statement released by Polk County Sheriff's Office on Friday.

Goodson allegedly killed the child because she "didn't know what to do with it," officials told WTSP.

Goodson had reportedly been wearing baggy clothes to hide from her family that she was pregnant. Two aunts suspected the teen was pregnant, but the girl's mother, Teresa Goodson, "was in complete denial," Sheriff Grady Judd told the Ledger.

As evidence that she wasn't pregnant, Cassidy Goodson had shown her mother two home pregnancy tests that turned up negative. However, the teen had conducted the tests completely alone.




Three days after the birth, the Sheriff's Office received a call reporting that Teresa Goodson, Cassidy Goodson's mother, had found a dead baby inside a shoe box in her home. Teresa Goodson said she found the body when she noticed an odor coming from her daughter's bedroom.

Judd believes that Cassidy Goodson's young age should be taken into account. "Let's remember she is a child," he said. "Where was her support system?"

Officials are considering charging adults who may have known about the pregnancy and kept it a secret. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to charge Cassidy Goodson as an adult.

Investigators are currently trying to determine the baby's father.

So sad. Wish she had taken this kid to a "safe place" & just walked away.

RedBedroom wrote:

Judd believes that Cassidy Goodson's young age should be taken into account. "Let's remember she is a child," he said. "Where was her support system?"

When I was 13 I knew if I got pregnant there would be NO support system, and I STILL knew better than to MURDER a child because that is a felony that gets you life or a needle in the arm, having a baby isn't and isn't anything that hasn't happened before with millions of other girls. I have no sympathy for her, I say fry her, I don't care she's not old enough to vote yet, she was old enough to get pregnant, smart enough to hide it from everybody and cold blooded enough to murder it and discard it like an old pair of sneakers.

Damn.

I think it is really easy to judge the girl harshly when one hasn't walked in her moccasins for a week. When I was young we were still living in the Victorian age, and believe me we were supposed to be virgins when we married, I was but let me tell you it wasn't easy when the boys all were after one thing and could be pretty darn persuasive. The girl who got pregnant was a pariah. I imagine there was a lot of infanticide then we just didn't hear about it as much. From what Shale has said I feel sorry for the girl, she will be punished harshly by the state and probably not get the psychiatric help she needs. Then will an uber religious family stand beside her? She is only 14 still a child herself.

Such a sad story.

Very sad. I know the girl is just a child, but I can't comprehend going throw such extremes to hide the truth. I partially blame the family for being dense; I don't understand how a parent couldn't tell their daughter was pregnant. And that she felt she couldn't own up to them about it just goes to show how flawed their relationship is. Sad.

Last I heard was that they're trying her as an adult & going for life in prison.

CeCe wrote:

Last I heard was that they're trying her as an adult & going for life in prison.

Works for me, I've never been sold on the idea that murder is okay and the killer shouldn't be punished too harshly just because they're young themselves.

No one has said murder is ok, however to try her as an adult and ask for the same punishment that a serial killer would get is repugnant. It has been proven scientifically that teenager's brains don't work the same as an adults, so yes she is still a child. I would suggest a good mental facility until she is 21. The word good here implies with good mental health care for her. When she is an adult she very likely will ask herself how she could have killed her baby. How many of us can say that everything we did as children or even as younger teens was sensible, and absolutely correct? I can bet our parents wished we were perfect.

Suzi wrote:

No one has said murder is ok, however to try her as an adult and ask for the same punishment that a serial killer would get is repugnant. It has been proven scientifically that teenager's brains don't work the same as an adults, so yes she is still a child. I would suggest a good mental facility until she is 21. The word good here implies with good mental health care for her. When she is an adult she very likely will ask herself how she could have killed her baby. How many of us can say that everything we did as children or even as younger teens was sensible, and absolutely correct? I can bet our parents wished we were perfect.

Okay so we weren't perfect as kids, there's a big difference between being immature and a screwup, and a murderer, shall we ask how many of us here killed a baby when we were 14?

And it doesn't even have to be about being pregnant and scared, look at the Jamie Bulger case, even when *I* was a kid I always said those kids should've rotted in jail until they were grown and THEN taken out and shot. Let's ask again, how many of us when we were 10 years old, kidnapped a toddler, tortured him and killed him because we were bored and thought it would be fun? And they got released after half of their sentence with new names and new lives, would you want them as your babysitter or as a father to helpless children of their own?

Suzi wrote:

No one has said murder is ok, however to try her as an adult and ask for the same punishment that a serial killer would get is repugnant. It has been proven scientifically that teenager's brains don't work the same as an adults, so yes she is still a child. I would suggest a good mental facility until she is 21. The word good here implies with good mental health care for her. When she is an adult she very likely will ask herself how she could have killed her baby. How many of us can say that everything we did as children or even as younger teens was sensible, and absolutely correct? I can bet our parents wished we were perfect.

I don't believe for a minute these adults didn't know or were in "denial". Look how small she is. That baby weighed 9 1/2 pounds. So I have to call bullshit on the idea they were in the dark. They need to find out who the baby's father is. That may or may not have some real significance in how & why it went the way it did. But no one will know until they investigate that.

FFS she was barely out of middle school. This is a tragedy for everyone, including her. These situations need to be judged case to case. I think the mental health care is the best way to go right now based on the information released so far.

Terrible