HOULTON — A 59-year-old woman who grew up in northern Maine was sentenced to six years in state prison for causing the death of a newborn baby girl she left in a Frenchville gravel pit more than 35 years ago.
Lee Ann Daigle pleaded guilty to manslaughter in April and was given a 16-year sentence Tuesday, but will serve six behind bars and then three years of probation upon her release. She was ordered to begin her sentence immediately.
Even after police announced charges against Daigle last June, little was known besides the allegations against her.
Lee Ann Daigle Photo courtesy of Maine State Police
Maine State Police were called to a Frenchville home in December 1985 after a couple’s dog had left the body of a newborn on their front lawn. The baby appeared to have been delivered full term and then abandoned, the Office of the Maine Attorney General said.
Police found a large pool of blood, a placenta, tire tracks and footprints in a gravel pit about 1,000 feet from the house.
A medical examiner at the time determined that the infant’s death was a homicide. But without DNA testing and no witnesses, police were short on leads.
It wasn’t until 36 years later that the Maine State Police Crime Lab identified the baby’s biological father through DNA testing. He has never been publicly identified. The following year, a genealogical specialist recommended police request a DNA sample from Daigle, believing she was either related to the baby or the biological mother.
Standing alongside the officers who helped investigate the death of Baby Jane Doe, Assistant Attorney General Lara Nomani said after Tuesday’s hearing in Aroostook County Superior Court that she respected Justice Stephen Nelson’s decision and believed he paid attention to all the facts.
“I think we all recognize what a difficult and complicated case this is,” Nomani said.
Nomani and Assistant Attorney General Suzanne Russell said Tuesday that Daigle, who lived in northern Maine at the time, knew months before that December night that she was pregnant, and that she deliberately meant to abandon her newborn, embarrassed by how it would look to her religious community, her family and her significant other at the time, who was not the father.
Daigle had access to several options in her northern Maine community, Russell said on Tuesday. There was an adoption agency, she was surrounded by the same loved ones who appeared with her in court for sentencing.
“But instead, she hid her pregnancy with loose clothes and pretended nothing was amiss,” Russell said. “Her self-interest and embarrassment outweighed the life of her baby. … She made a conscious choice. She chose to abandon her baby and let her die.”
‘SHE WAS ALONE, TERRIFIED, AND IN SHOCK’
Daigle – joined by family, her defense attorneys and the two daughters she raised and supported years after Jane Doe – argued in court Tuesday that the story was not so clear cut.
“This is just a very sad case,” attorney Adam Swanson said after sentencing. He was disappointed with the amount of time Daigle is required to serve. Nelson ordered that she report immediately to the Department of Corrections after sentencing, despite a request by her attorneys that they wait until Friday so she could attend a birthday party for her grandson after missing the one last year because of her arrest.
Daigle spent 77 days in jail last summer, before she was released on bail and placed on house arrest before trial.
After the sentencing, Daigle’s family declined an interview request made through Swanson.
Her attorneys suggested Daigle was experiencing “cryptic pregnancy,” or pregnancy denial in 1985. Not only was Daigle unaware, but those closest to her saw none of the telltale signs. Even her significant other at the time, whom she was intimate with less than a month before delivering Baby Jane Doe, could not tell.
When Daigle found herself driving home late that December night, she suddenly felt a strong urge to use the restroom, Swanson told the court. Soon afterward, she gave birth.
“She was 21 years old,” Swanson said. “She was naïve. It was the middle of winter, she was alone, terrified and in shock. She was frightened, confused and had just given birth to a baby – a major health event.”
Daigle said, had she been aware the baby was alive, she wouldn’t have left her.
“If I had known she was alive, I would’ve given her the best chance of survival, after providing herself and myself medical aid,” Daigle said, sobbing so hard that at times she had to repeat herself.
While prosecutors listed the life Baby Jane Doe was deprived of – one of love, affection, birthday parties and school, a career and a family of her own – Daigle’s daughters, born in 1989 and 1992, described a woman who was consistently and reliably there for them, throughout all of their milestones.
A STARK CONTRAST
Shortly after delivering Baby Jane Doe in 1985, Daigle moved to New Hampshire with her partner at the time, whom she would later marry. She worked a security job while taking night classes in information technology and wanted to work for the Department of Defense.
Though she and her husband divorced in 1999, “Life was busy, but full of joy,” Daigle said Tuesday. “I really enjoyed motherhood, and there is not a day that goes by that I’m not proud of my children. There’s not a day that goes by, when I don’t wonder, ‘Could I have raised another?’”
Growing up, Kristyn Daigle, the youngest, told the court she was plagued with ear infections that led to a speech impediment. Daigle took her to every appointment and arranged for her daughter to meet regularly with a speech pathologist.
Kristyn Daigle said her mother encouraged her as an athlete and a student – she was there for every cheerleading competition and graduation, “no occasion too small,” she said.
And when Kristyn Daigle was starting a new career in March 2022, and wanted to move to Massachusetts, her mom went with her. They shared a two-bedroom condo, where after stressful days on the job, Kristyn Daigle would come home and her mother would have dinner ready. She knew when to ask her daughter if she wanted to go on a walk, or lie on the couch.
“I am still living in that same two-bedroom condo,” Kristyn Daigle said. “I walk by her empty bedroom every day, and I can’t help but get flashbacks. I wish she would come home.”
Nelson, before delivering Daigle’s sentence, said the life her daughters had “puts into stark contrast the opportunities that her actions took away from her first baby.”
Before deciding on a sentence, Nelson asked Daigle to explain inconsistencies in what she told police, about not thinking of Baby Jane Doe at all, and her statements in court that she struggled with the incident regularly.
“That is inconsistent with a claim that this has been on someone’s mind, or that they’ve been suffering in silence on this secret, for quite some time,” Nelson said.
“When I spoke to the police, I was nervous, scared and embarrassed. I did not tell the police everything,” Daigle told Nelson. “What I told you is the truth. What I feel is real.”
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