National Police Gazette

    Nicole Marie Beecroft, a 17-year-old unwed high school student, allowed herself to become pregnant and then give birth--all with her parents completely unaware--and then stabbed her newborn baby girl to death with 135 blows. It happened this month in Oakdale, Minnesota, an eastern suburb of St. Paul. The neighborhood of single-family homes in winding, tree-lined streets--which strove to avoid scrutiny--became the focus of national interest when the dead, bloodied infant was discovered inside the garbage can outside the Beecroft home.
    Young Nicole now faces life in prison on the charge of 1st-degree murder. She is being held in the Washington County juvenile detention facility at $1,000,000 bail. The excuse that Nicole gave for taking a sharp knife and plunging it into the chest of a living, breathing child over and over 135 times was that after giving birth she went into a "panic state." The Police Gazette, at this point, resists the urge to editorialize as we could only be preaching to the choir and, therefore, wasting space that could be better utilized on more pressing matters, to wit:
    Police became suspicious when an anonymous tipster told them that a cashier at a Cub Foods grocery store in St. Paul had given birth to a stillborn baby and threw it in the garbage at her home. Nicole, the cashier in question, had called in sick during the time events were unfolding. Police visited the Beecroft home where Kari Beecroft, Nicole's mother, told officers her daughter had been sick in bed, but was now better and back at work. The officers then looked through Nicole's room where they found a bag containing adult diapers. Kari Beecroft told police her daughter had been using them because she had been experiencing a very heavy period.
    Meanwhile, other officers picked up Nicole at the Cub Foods where she worked and took her to the Oakdale Police Department. There she admitted to giving birth the day before in the laundry room of the Beecroft home. She put a towel on the floor, and the baby was born there. But she tried to claim that the baby girl was stillborn, and it was at that point that she decided to dispose of the lifeless body in the garbage can. With search warrant in hand, police then recovered the body from the garbage can two days after Nicole had placed it there. The condition of the body left no doubt as to what had happened. Nicole Beecroft then confessed to what she had done.
    As a "safe harbor" state, Minnesota allows mothers to leave their newborns at any hospital within 72 hours after giving birth with no legal consequences. But lost in her suburban bubble, young Nicole Beecroft chose the "panic state" over the "safe harbor" state, and a newborn baby girl was brutally murdered as a result.