Woman in Infant Case Plans Suit

A day after prosecutors dismissed murder charges against an Ocean City woman accused of killing one of several babies and fetuses found in her home, the mother said yesterday that she plans to sue the authorities.

Christy Freeman, 37, said the authorities ruined her life and reputation when they stormed onto her property this summer, digging up her yard and breaking walls in search of evidence.

"Somebody's got to pay for the damage on my property," Ray Godman, who is Freeman's boyfriend and has four children with her, said in a telephone interview. "You can't just throw murder charges around like Frisbees and see if they stick."

Worcester County State's Attorney Joel J. Todd said that charges were dropped because the medical examiner's office could not prove that the bodies found in Freeman's home were ever alive.

The case began in July when the police arrested Freeman after hospital doctors who were treating her for pain and bleeding discovered a placenta in her womb. At her home, investigators found four sets of remains, among them a boy born recently and thought to be stillborn and two bodies authorities determined to be twins born at least three years ago.

Authorities initially charged Freeman with murder in the case of the baby thought to be stillborn. But prosecutors later replaced that murder charge with a murder count related to one of the twins.

The medical examiner's office issued fetal death certificates for all the remains, concluding that the deaths might have occurred naturally based on Freeman's history of stillborn births, an infection in the placenta doctors found inside her, and her tobacco use and alleged cocaine use.

Godman dismissed the allegations of cocaine use.

"Of course pregnant women smoke," he said. "If they arrested every woman who smoked, they'd have the jails full."

Prosecutors said they could not find any statutes that apply to a mother's disposal of stillborn remains.