OCEAN CITY, Md. – Investigators ended their exhaustive search of an Ocean City property for human remains Tuesday, finding no more just a day after the bodies of four unborn infants were discovered there.
The owner of a local taxi company, Christy Freeman, 37, was charged Monday in the murder of one of the infants, a boy police said Freeman gave birth to last week. The remains of all four infants found on the property were being tested Tuesday to confirm that all four infants were Freeman's.
Though no additional remains were found, authorities did tell FOX News earlier Tuesday that cadaver dogs scouring the property got a "positive hit" and that other evidence collected in the case has lead authorities to believe that the discovery of more corpses was possible.
Ocean City police will search the house Wednesday to make sure nothing was missed.
The grisly discoveries came to light after Freeman was admitted to a hospital with bleeding last week. Doctors found that she'd recently given birth, but had no baby.
A search of Freeman's home revealed a 26-week-old male fetus, which investigators say was wrapped in a bloodied towel and hidden under a bathroom vanity. Ocean City Police Spokesman Barry Neeb said Tuesday that an interview with Freeman led authorities to believe she caused the fetus' death.
"It was something she said. I can't expand on that," Neeb said.
While searching for Freeman's baby, authorities uncovered two more sets of fetal remains, plus some matter that appeared to be a placenta, wrapped in plastic in a trunk in Freeman's bedroom.
Police said Freeman's interview also led them to a Winnebago parked in her yard, where a fourth set of remains were found. The discoveries launched an intensive search of the home, with bulldozers and cadaver dogs combing the small, overgrown property Monday. Neeb said the search should be complete by Wednesday.
"We don't have an expectation we're going to find something. We just want to be thorough in our investigation," Neeb said.
Freeman, who lived in the apartment with a long-term boyfriend and their four teenage children, is being held without bond, charged with first degree murder, second degree murder and manslaughter in the death of the baby she delivered last week. Freeman was being held in the Worcester County jail awaiting an Aug. 27 preliminary hearing.
Freeman is being charged under Maryland's "viable fetus" law, a 2005 statute that allows for murder charges against someone who causes the death of a fetus considered viable.
Worcester County state's attorney Joel Todd said the state will use that statute to pursue the murder charges.
"We will have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she did something to cause that baby to be stillborn," Todd said.
Freeman's case is only the second to be prosecuted under the law since it was enacted two years ago, Sean Sober of the Maryland Coast Dispatch told FOX News.
Should it be determined that the other babies found on the property were born prior to 2005, prosecutors would not be able to prosecute Freeman for murder or manslaughter—even if they were able to determine that the fetuses were viable and that Freeman caused their deaths.
In her bond hearing, Freeman professed her innocence but did not offer any clues about what happened to the fetuses.
"I want to clear my name in this case," she said.
Ocean City Police Chief Bernadette DiPino said authorities are presuming all four fetuses belonged to Freeman, though tests hadn't confirmed that yet.
Del Pino told FOX News on Monday that Freeman may have been performing abortions on herself.
Sources also told FOX News Tuesday that Freeman may have had two other children that she gave up for adoption.
Freeman's longtime boyfriend, Raymond W. Godman Jr., has not been charged with a crime.
"At this point, he is not a suspect, but we are not ruling anyone out," DiPino said.
According to charging documents, Godman said he found his girlfriend bleeding in the bathroom last Thursday. When rescuers arrived, Freeman told them she was not and had not recently been pregnant, according to the charging documents.
Later she told police she had delivered a deformed baby and that she had flushed the fetus down the toilet. According to the charging documents, though, the baby was a "viable fetus/infant," with hands, feet and facial features.
Freeman's four children were in custody of Godman, their father.
In comments to reporters, DiPino referred to the remains in the trunk as "bones," but she did not say how old those remains were thought to be, nor would she say how old the fetuses were when they died. None was thought to be a full-term baby.
"We don't know how much time lapsed between the time they were delivered and the time they were discovered," DiPino said.
The emerging details of the case continued to shock and disturb residents of the resort community Freeman called home for 17 years. Freeman was well-known in the area, and neighbors and fellow local business owners expressed their disbelief and disgust.
"This is not the stamp we want on Ocean City," the owner of a local tavern told FOX News.
Fox News' Rick Leventhal and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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