Ashley Ard, the 24-year-old accused of abandoning her newborn baby girl at an Eagle River park where the infant was found dead some eight hours later, pleaded not guilty to murder during a Superior Court arraignment Tuesday in Anchorage. A weekend judge appointed Ard a public defender on Saturday, but now a well-known Anchorage attorney is taking on the case.
Ard faces a second-degree murder charge. If convicted, she could be sentenced to up to 99 years in prison and fined $500,000.
Ard, an enlisted soldier, appeared in court wearing an orange prison suit and sticking out like a sore thumb among three other women wearing the typical yellow jumpsuits of the Anchorage jail. An orange suit often means that the prisoner is in protective segregation.
Anchorage attorney Rex Butler entered Ard's not-guilty plea. Ard didn't speak during the brief hearing while her mother, who traveled north from the family's home state of Virginia, looked on. The mother offered no comment after the hearing.
A Superior Court judge kept the woman's bail at a hefty $250,000 and set a trial date for Jan. 27, though the case will likely continue through the year as the prosecution and defense file numerous motions.
Speaking to media after the arraignment, Butler said Ard has strong family support. He also said the soldier has no history of drug or alcohol abuse, and the murder charge is both stressful and entirely new to his defendant. She has no previous criminal history, he said.
Butler said his law office plans to "dig as deeply as we can … and prepare her case."
The attorney is known for tackling high-profile cases, such as the Mat-Su Valley case involving a trooper who can reportedly smell marijuana from more than a football field away and, more recently, an Anchorage murder case involving a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran.
He requested the public reserve its judgment until all of the facts surrounding the alleged murder come to light. "The thing about the initial facts, they're partial information," he said. "It's not unusual for cases to start one way and end" differently.
The case's most important information will be the autopsy report of the baby, Butler said. The cause and time of the infant's death remain unknowns, he said. The case is too fresh -- less than 10 days old -- to dispute any of the facts, Butler said.
Butler said he has not been in contact with the baby's father. Police declined to identify the father during a Saturday press conference, citing an ongoing investigation and privacy laws. An Anchorage Police Department spokesperson did not immediately return a request for information Tuesday.
Also revealed Saturday, the police said Ard carried the newborn to full-term, and the department believes she left the baby at the suburban park while it was still alive.
Sgt. Cindi Stanton said during the press conference that Ard would have avoided the murder charge had she taken advantage of the state's Safe Haven Law. The law allows mothers to drop off newborns up to 21 days old with police officers, firefighters or emergency medical technicians and at hospitals and fire or police stations without fear of prosecution.
The sergeant also said cases such as this one are rare, as it's been more than a decade since a similar incident.
Contact Jerzy Shedlock at jerzy(at)alaskadispatch.com