Parents face homicide charges after baby's body found in cat litter
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The parents of a 6-month-old infant are facing criminal homicide charges after the baby's body was found in a container filled with cat litter in a crawl space at their Pennsylvania home.
Shaun Oxenreider, 25, and Samantha Trump, 27, were charged with concealing the death of a child, abuse of a corpse and conspiracy.
Authorities said Harper Trump’s body was found on March 20 in a trash bag in a plastic container filled with cat litter at the Springfield Township complex.
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An autopsy concluded Harper died around Jan. 1 from blunt force head trauma and had rib fractures.
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"When you see a young child's life taken away, unnaturally, in a situation where they were abused to the point where they were murdered, that's tough to swallow," John Adams, the Berks County District Attorney, told WFMZ.
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Police were called to the home after relatives were “suspicious about the death of the baby,” PennLive reported. Police searched the home, where they found the baby’s body behind a locked door that led to the crawl space.
The defendants remain in prison in lieu of $250,000 bail each. Oxenreider's attorney earlier said his client wasn't the primary caregiver.
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Adams said the investigation was ongoing.
"This is an ongoing investigation,” he told the Reading Eagle. “The cause of death is homicide, but we know there is a lot of information that we are still trying to gather and we will continue to gather."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.