NEPTUNE TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - A New Jersey couple are headed to state prison for their roles in the death of their newborn baby who was killed and tossed into an outdoor trash bin.
Jada McClain, 20, received a 10-year sentence Thursday. She had pleaded guilty last year to aggravated manslaughter. Quaimere Mohammed, 21, who pleaded guilty to disturbing or desecrating human remains, received a five-year sentence.
Their respective lawyers sought lesser sentences for their clients, citing their ages at the time and their immaturity. McClain sobbed as she asked state Superior Court Judge David Bauman for leniency, telling him “I’m really sorry and I promise to never do it again.”
Joseph Competello, the assistant Monmouth County prosecutor handling the cases, told Bauman the appropriate leniency had already been taken into account in fashioning plea bargains for both defendants. Bauman eventually agreed, noting that McClain had made other attempts to end her pregnancy.
An investigation revealed that McClain had become pregnant by Mohammed, a student at Asbury Park High School, in July 2018. McClain hid the pregnancy from her parents, authorities said.
The killing occurred on March 29, 2019, when McClain - then a student at Neptune High School - gave birth to a son at her family’s Neptune Township home. Police were notified on April 4 that she had recently given birth and that the child was dead.
After giving birth, McClain pressed her hands on the boy’s chest until he stopped breathing, according to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. She then contacted Mohammed, and later that morning, the two disposed of the child’s body in an outdoor trash bin near a public housing complex in Asbury Park.
Investigators learned that the contents of the trash container were transported to the county landfill in Tinton Falls, where they were compacted and buried. The infant’s body was never recovered.
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