Paris Mayo guilty of murdering son hours after birth

A teenager has been found guilty of murdering her baby son hours after she delivered him at home alone.

Paris Mayo was 15 when she gave birth to him in 2019, after concealing her pregnancy from her family.

A trial at Worcester Crown Court heard Mayo suffocated him by stuffing cotton wool into his mouth and throat.

Jurors were also able to consider a charge of infanticide but took eight hours and 38 minutes to convict her of murder.

Warning – this article contains distressing content.

Mayo, of Ruardean in Gloucestershire, gave birth to Stanley at her family home in Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire in March 2019.

The court heard how his remains were discovered by her mother the following morning in a bin bag.

Mayo had claimed she did not know she was pregnant and said Stanley was not moving and did not make a noise when he was born.

However medical experts said it was likely he had been alive for a couple of hours, had taken breaths and may also have cried.

She said she had used the cotton wool found in the infant’s mouth and throat to clean up blood and claimed his fractured skull had been caused by him falling on the floor during birth.

However the prosecution said medical evidence showed that was not an adequate explanation and that such injuries were normally found after major trauma, such as a car crash.

The court heard how Mayo had a difficult family life and her father, who was terminally ill at the time Stanley was born and died shortly after, made her feel “worthless”.

In her testimony, Mayo described how she started having sex at 13 and used it as a way to get people to like her because she was “insecure” due to her family situation.

Experts disagreed about her state of mind, with one of the opinion she had “created a false memory” while another said she was “remarkably well intact”.

Mayo cried in the dock after the jury, made up of five men and seven women, returned a majority guilty verdict for murder.

Following the verdict, Det Insp Julie Taylor from West Mercia Police said it was “a devastating case”.

“The death of a new-born baby is utterly heart-breaking, even more so when the person who is responsible is the baby’s own mother,” she said.

Mayo had concealed her pregnancy from people who “could have, and would have, supported her,” she said.

The 19-year-old was remanded in custody and is set to return to Worcester Crown Court on Monday to be sentenced.

Source: bbc.co.uk