Mother of Fetus Found in Plane Toilet Identified

18-year-old from Brooklyn may have had 'botched abortion,' per law enforcement officials
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 9, 2018 9:20 AM CDT
Mother of Fetus Found in Plane Toilet Identified
American Airlines planes are parked at a gate at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Nov. 29, 2011.   (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

More details are emerging after the gruesome find this week of a fetus in the bathroom of an American Airlines plane at New York's LaGuardia Airport. Law enforcement officials tell the New York Post that the mother has been identified as an 18-year-old Brooklyn teen who rushed into the plane's lavatory soon after it touched down Monday evening after flying in from Charlotte, NC. As other passengers finished disembarking, the teen's twin sister, who stood outside the bathroom door, told the flight crew it was an "emergency," the officials add. Per the New York Daily News, the teen checked herself into Kings County Hospital after she got off the plane. She was IDed by her seat assignment after flight crew recounted her bathroom incident to investigators.

A cleaning crew discovered the fetus early Tuesday; the medical examiner's office put the fetus's gestational age at five months, CNN reports. A law enforcement source who spoke to the Daily News says the virtually emotionless teen told investigators she hadn't even known she was pregnant and that she'd felt sick for a few days. However, the Daily News source says doctors at the hospital told investigators the teen may not have suffered an out-of-the-blue miscarriage: Based on what they found when they examined her, they suspect she may have had a "botched abortion." The teen told cops she'd seen a doctor while she was in Jamaica—where her flight originated—though it's not clear if police probed her on the reason for the doctor's visit. An autopsy is being conducted on the fetus. (More American Airlines stories.)

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