A South Carolina mother is on trial for homicide through child abuse this week after allegedly placing two of her newborns in trash bags and throwing them away about a year apart.
Alyssa Dayvault, 31, is accused of hiding two pregnancies - one in 2017 and one in 2018 - from her boyfriend and family before giving birth in secret and disposing of the babies' bodies.
Dayvault, who worked as a makeup artist, did not show up for her trial this week, causing the judge to issue a warrant for her arrest.
The case is moving forward at the Horry County courthouse with her lawyers putting on a defense, despite not having spoken to her last week.
Police were first called to investigate when Dayvault showed up at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center in early December 2018 with heavy bleeding.
While under care at the hospital, Dayvault delivered a placenta and umbilical cord consistent with a full term pregnancy, but no child was delivered, a police warrant said.
When police arrived, Dayvault told investigators she had given birth to a baby boy a few days earlier in her Myrtle Beach home but she blacked out from the pain of delivering the child alone.
Dayvault is said to have failed to seek medical attention for two of her newborn babies, born almost a year apart, letting them die and then disposing of their bodies in trash bags
Police were first called to investigate when Dayvault showed up at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center in early December 2018 with heavy bleeding and delivered a placenta and umbilical cord consistent with a full term pregnancy, but no child was delivered
She said that she gave birth to the baby boy here at her Myrtle Beach home
Dayvault claimed she woke up 15 minutes later and on finding the boy's face blue, threw his body in a waste receptacle at her residence, according to the warrants.
She failed to seek medical attention or try to save the baby's life.
Prosecutors on Wednesday played a recording of Dayvault's interview with police at the hospital.
Dayvault is heard telling investigators in the recording she hid the 2018 pregnancy from both her longtime boyfriend and her mother.
She then details the birth and disposing of the body.
On December 11, 2018, North Myrtle beach police conducted a search warrant of Dayvault's home, where they found the body of the baby boy.
She told officers she delivered the baby alone. And after passing out from the pain and discovering the unconscious baby, she put him in a trash bag and threw him away, the recording showed.
While being questioned, Dayvault also admitted it had happened before.
Between November 4 and November 23, 2017, she said, she also gave birth alone, this time to a girl, and threw her body away after the baby had her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, the court heard. Again, she didn't seek medical attention for the baby.
She hid the pregnancy that time too, and there were no complications so no one knew.
According to her medical records, Dayvault had been in the third trimester in November 2017 and the baby girl had shown a healthy heart tone.
Dayvault refused a plea deal in February and then failed to appear in court this week
The judge to issue a warrant for her arrest after she failed to turn up to her trial
Dayvault then allegedly disposed of the bodies in a trash bag outside the house
She did not go into details about that birth in the body camera video, which was shown Wednesday during the first day of testimony.
Dayvault first denied having a baby when she was questioned, but as investigators pressed her, she started crying in the video.
They asked her why she threw the babies away and she said her boyfriend didn't want children and she was scared how her mother would react.
Dayvault has two other older children.
'I wasn't thinking. I wasn't. I was too scared,' said Dayvault, barely understandable as she cried in the video.
Dayvault, pictured previously in custody, did not turn up for her trial this week
'This isn't a murder trial,' prosecutor Josh Holford said in his opening statement Wednesday.
'We don't have enough evidence to prove the defendant intentionally killed her babies. We are not saying she intentionally suffocated her babies.'
Instead, Holford said, prosecutors would prove Dayvault showed 'extreme indifference for human life' because she sought no care from anyone for her newborns.
'She didn't drop that baby girl off at the fire station. She didn't put the baby girl up for adoption. She didn't ask her mother to take care of the baby girl. She simply threw this baby out with the trash,' Holford said.
Public defender Sharde Crawford told jurors she doesn't think prosecutors can show Dayvault didn't care about the babies at all.
Crawford said there would be several unanswered questions when testimony was finished, including 'what evidence has the state shown that will prove to you the cause of death?'
Court ended early Wednesday because the prosecution's final witness was a doctor who was seeing patients and couldn't get to court until Thursday.
The judge suggested the jury could get the case before the end of the day Thursday.
Dayvault faces up to life in prison if convicted.
She was out on bond and has not been to court this week, from jury selection Monday to the first day of testimony Wednesday.
Her lawyers planned a full defense even without her there.
Alyssa Dayvault, pictured, had two other older children before this
Dayvault worked as a make-up artist and posted her work online
If Dayvault is found guilty, the judge will seal her sentence until she is found and brought to court.
She rejected a plea deal in February in which she would plead guilty to one charge of homicide by child abuse and would serve a sentence of 30 to 35 years in prison.
Her boyfriend has spoken of his horror at learning about the deaths of the newborns when the cops first brought the allegations.
Chris Matechen told detectives they must have been wrong when they came to search the couple's home.
It is not clear if he was the father of the children.
'Unless you have video evidence, let me know,' Matechen rold cops, according to WMBF. 'And that’s when they told me they found the baby boy on our property in the garbage can.'
'And the hardest part is thinking about that baby girl that no one knew of,' he added.
'I go over to Cherry Grove Commons every day and I drop a flower in front of the dumpster.'
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