Tullytown Woman Pleads Guilty to Hiding Dead Infant

A Tullytown woman has pleaded guilty before Bucks County Judge Wallace Bateman to hiding the corpse of her stillborn baby in a plastic trash bag in her bedroom closet last July, according to the Bucks County Courier Times.

Lorie Bendorovich's sentencing for the two misdemeanor charges of concealing the death of a child and abuse of a corpse will be determined in 60 days, the newspaper reports, giving her attorney time to present an expert that will describe Bendorovich's state of mind when she gave birth to a stillborn baby girl in her bedroom.

According to the arrest affidavit, a friend of Bendorovich's niece placed a 911 call last summer and reported a dead baby in a trash can at the home. Bendorovich met Tullytown Borough officers at the house and directed them to her bedroom, where a black trash bag was seen on the floor.

Bucks County detectives removed the infant and had it transported to the Bucks County Coroner's office for an autopsy. Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler told reporters that a post-mortem examination indicated that the baby was a stillborn birth.

"The child never took a breath," said Heckler during the press conference.

According to Heckler, the coroner said the baby had been carried to term when it was born. Heckler said the woman's eldest son discovered the body a few days later.

Bendorovich told detectives she had not been aware of the pregnancy, but an investigation of her Facebook page showed comments to the contrary, Heckler said. Court documents say detectives also interviewed the father, who said he had intercourse with Bendorovich in late October 2012, and she told him she was pregnant a month later. 

The father offered to raise the child with Bendorovich or by himself, but she told him a few days later that she was no longer pregnant.