PLEASANT GROVE, Utah : 39 y-o Megan Huntsman Arrested After 7 Dead Babies Found In Utah Garage stuffed in separate cardboard boxes

 AP  | by  BRADY McCOMBS and MARTIN GRIFFITH Posted: 04/13/2014 9:47 pm EDT Updated: 04/14/2014 12:00 am EDT

PLEASANT GROVE, Utah (AP) — A Utah woman accused of killing several babies she gave birth to over 10 years was arrested Sunday after police discovered seven tiny bodies stuffed in separate cardboard boxes in the garage of her former home.

Megan Huntsman was booked into the Utah County
 jail on suspicion of killing six of her newborn
 children over the past decade.
 | ASSOCIATED PRESS

Megan Huntsman, 39, who lived in the Pleasant Grove home until three years ago, had the infants between 1996 and 2006, investigators said.

Neighbors in the middle-class neighborhood of mostly older homes 35 miles south of Salt Lake City say they were shocked by the accusations and perplexed that the woman's older children still living in the home didn't know their mother was pregnant or notice anything suspicious.

Officers responded to a call Saturday from Huntsman's estranged husband about a dead infant at the home, police Capt. Michael Roberts said. Officers then discovered the six other bodies.

Roberts declined to comment on a motive and what Huntsman said during an interview with investigators. He said it wasn't clear if she has an attorney. Huntsman was booked Sunday into the Utah County Jail on six counts of murder. It wasn't immediately clear why there were six counts and not seven.

Family and neighbors identified the estranged husband as Darren West, who has been in prison on drug-related charges. The spokesman said police believe West and Huntsman were together when the babies were born, but West isn't a person of interest at this time.

"We don't believe he had any knowledge of the situation," Roberts told The Associated Press. Asked how the husband could not have known, Roberts replied, "That's the million-dollar question. Amazing."

The babies' bodies were sent to the Utah medical examiner's office for tests, including one to determine the cause of death. DNA samples taken from the suspect and her husband will determine definitively whether the two are the parents, as investigators believe.

Police say West was cleaning out the garage when he made the grisly discovery at the house owned by his parents in a city of about 35,000 people at the foot of snow-capped mountains. It's a nondescript, newer home with a brick facade and a star ornament hanging by the door. Several police cars blocked the entrance to the house Sunday evening as officers milled about with the belongings from the garage strewn across the front lawn. Late Sunday, West's family issued a statement saying they were in a "state of shock and confusion." more