Woman Confesses To Strangling Her Newborn Infant To Death, Dumping Body In Dumpster 35 Years Ago

A Florida woman reportedly confessed to strangling her newborn infant to death and dumping his body in a bag in a dumpster outside her building in Greenwich, Connecticut about 35 years ago.

Janita M. Phillips, 62, now of Lake Mary, Florida, has been arrested on Friday, Nov. 19, and charged with murder after she confessed to the 1986 murder of an “infant male child found deceased inside a sanitation truck” in Greenwich, Connecticut, Law & Crime reported.

The baby, dubbed by police officers as “Baby John” at the time, was discovered dead at about 5:50 a.m. on May. 16, 1986, with its “placenta and umbilical cord still attached” in a sanitation truck that had just emptied a dumpster at a Greenwich apartment. The baby appeared to have been strangled to death shortly after birth. The case was ruled a homicide by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and sixteen detectives were assigned to the case at that time.

The baby's body reportedly "weighed 3 pounds, 10 ounces and was born after the mother’s eighth month of pregnancy,” according to 1986 news accounts.

The detectives collected items soaked with blood and conducted interviews with residents who stayed in the Greenwich apartment building. However, the case went cold and the suspect remained a mystery for years until the Greenwich Police Cold Case Unit used newly available forensic testing in 2020 and linked physical evidence from the scene to Philips, who was a resident of the apartment at the time of the child’s death, according to NBC News.

Following the discovery, Greenwich Police detectives traveled to Florida and interviewed Philips in September 2021. During the interview, Philips reportedly confessed to secretly giving birth to a baby boy in her apartment, strangling the infant to death, and leaving his body in a bag in a dumpster outside her building.

“Additional DNA testing further confirmed that [Phillips] was the mother of the deceased child,” Greenwich police said.

Philips told the officers that she got rid of her baby as she knew that her husband didn’t want any more kids and that he had big dreams of becoming a fashion designer. DNA further confirmed that Philip's husband was indeed the child's father.

Phillips has been charged with murder and is being held on a $50,000 bond as of Friday morning, Nov. 19, KSNB reported.

Greenwich Police stated that Phillips hid her pregnancy and felt remorseful over the years. Phillips reportedly moved to Florida shortly after killing the baby and has three children, one of whom has special needs.

"She’s overcome whatever happened here, and she’s lived a stellar life. Never been arrested, this is her first time ever being arrested. She’s raised a family, been married for all this time. She’s been working steadily for 30 years in the same industry,” Lindy Urso, Philips' attorney said.