Anchorage Daily News

Morgan Hite secretly delivered a baby boy in a neighbor's bathtub, then wrapped him in a garbage bag, put him in a plastic tote and shelved the container in a bedroom closet at her family's Grand Junction, Colo., home, according to a police affidavit made public Wednesday.

The child's body remained hidden for two months before Hite's father and stepmother discovered the decomposing body wrapped in a bloody green towel, the affidavit says.

The 22-year-old Wasilla resident has been charged in Colorado with first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death. She was arrested Tuesday in Alaska, where she had returned in early April.

On Wednesday, she made an initial appearance in Palmer court and refused to be extradited to Colorado immediately, saying she wished to speak with an attorney before deciding whether to fight being sent to a state in which she could face the death penalty, Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak said.

According to the affidavit, Hite gave investigators a statement Friday and said she arrived in Grand Junction on Feb. 24 to visit family, and gave birth to the boy the next day. When she got there, she told her father and stepmother, Chris and Stacy Hite, that she had been pregnant but delivered the child in Alaska earlier in the month and had already given it up for adoption, according to the affidavit. But she still looked about six months pregnant, her parents told investigators.

Hite told police she had tried to get an abortion in Anchorage but a women's health clinic would not perform the procedure because she was 15 1/2 weeks pregnant, the affidavit says. Alaska law limits abortions to the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

On Feb. 25, Hite and her 4-year-old daughter were alone at her father's Colorado home when a maid arrived, and they went across the street to a neighbor's house. The neighbor, Kara Safriet, was out with Hite's stepmother at the time, the affidavit says.

While there, with her daughter asleep in a bedroom, Hite went into labor, closed herself in a bathroom and delivered the child alone, she told investigators, adding that the newborn was not breathing or moving. However, a medical examiner who conducted an autopsy later concluded the infant was born alive.

When Safriet and Hite's stepmother returned, Hite's stepmother knocked on the bathroom door. Hite responded that she was bleeding badly and had severe cramps and wanted to take a bath before going home, the affidavit says.

Stacy Hite went home and retrieved a change of clothes and a plastic bag for her stepdaughter. Hite cleaned the bathroom, put on the fresh clothes, and, unknown to the other women, wrapped the child in the bag, she told investigators. She then returned to her father's home and concealed the newborn, the affidavit says.

"Morgan stated she couldn't put the baby in a trash can and just throw it away," the affidavit says. "Morgan indicated that there is no excuse for what she did but everything started snowballing and she felt like she couldn't turn back."

Later the same day, she went shopping in preparation for a family trip and in the days following went snowboarding in Vail and attended a college hockey tournament in Colorado Springs, the affidavit says.

For more than a month after the death, Hite stayed in the room where she had hidden the infant's body, prosecutors said. She returned to Alaska on April 3, and the child's corpse was finally discovered by Hite's parents April 29, a week before her arrest in Mat-Su.

"The child was the primary victim, but I consider Ms. Hite's parents to be secondary victims," Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "They're the ones that had to go through the house trying to find out what was causing the smell and then find the decomposing body of their grandson."

Hite told investigators that the baby was stillborn with its eyes shut and blue skin, but that she made no effort to start it breathing. Nor did she call 911 or contact authorities to alert them of the child's birth, Grand Junction police said.

The cause of the child's death is not known, but the medical examiner concluded that the infant was born alive, and the newborn may have suffocated when Hite stuffed him in the plastic bag, Hautzinger said.

Had Hite just dropped the infant off at a hospital instead, she would not be facing charges, he said.

BABY'S FATHER UNDETERMINED

During an interview with Alaska State Troopers last week, Hite said she wasn't ready to have another child because she was not financially secure and that her relationship with her boyfriend, 23-year-old Nate Pokryfki -- the father of her daughter -- was not where it needed to be. She told troopers the boy was either Pokryfki's child or that of another man she had been seeing.

"The paternity of the baby could become an issue down the road," Hautzinger said. "It may be a motive for coming down here and hiding it from her boyfriend."

Pokryfki, who now has custody of the 4-year-old daughter, declined to comment Wednesday.

Under Colorado law, first-degree murder carries a penalty of either life in prison or the death penalty, Hautzinger said. It will not likely be a case in which prosecutors seek the death penalty, though, and Hautzinger indicated he might be willing to negotiate a plea to lesser charges.

"There are certainly elements of, perhaps, mental health considerations, and I would be willing to consider those factors," Hautzinger said.

Hite is being held without bail and will have a hearing June 6 to determine the status of her extradition proceedings, said Kalytiak, the Palmer prosecutor.

Colorado prosecutors have already begun seeking a warrant to compel her extradition should she fight it, Hautzinger said.

Find James Halpin online at adn.com/contact/jhalpin or call him at 257-4589.

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