Grisly Homicide of Newborn Ends in Prison Sentence

By RADHIKA VISWANATHAN

A young woman charged with killing her newborn infant was sentenced to 16 years in state prison on Thursday, marking the end of what the prosecution called a “really troubling case.”

Tiona Rodriguez, 21, walked into the Manhattan courtroom wearing prison khakis, round and thick glasses, and a large, silver cross dangling from her necklace. Simply shaking her head when Judge Thomas Farber asked if she had any words, she accepted her negotiated sentence: 16 years of incarceration plus five years under supervision.

“I don’t think anything more needs to be said on the record,” Farber said, referring to the widely publicized case, which began in 2015. “This is a horribly sad and tragic case.”

Rodriguez, who initially faced life in prison, agreed to a plea bargain that reduced the murder charge  to

first-degree manslaughter. One of the most damning pieces of evidence was a text message that Rodriguez sent to a friend describing her plan to dispose of the tiny body: “dig a hole, put it somewhere, lol, then we go eat IHOP.”

The case received widespread media coverage due to its grisly details; in 2013, the then-17-year old mother, suspected of shoplifting from the Victoria’s Secret store in Herald Square, was stopped by a security guard. The guard found the shoplifted clothing in her bag—along with a dead newborn boy.

As the case unfolded, details about Rodriguez’s life revealed a troubled teenager who first got pregnant at 14 years old. A year after giving birth to her son, who is now four years old, she got pregnant again. It is still not clear what happened to her second child. The murdered baby was Rodriguez’s third pregnancy, all of which she struggled to keep hidden from her family.

She gave birth to the baby in her friend’s bathtub in October 2013 and killed him soon after, said the indictment. The cause of death was ruled as asphyxiation.

Rodriguez’s sole surviving child is currently living with her mother in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.