Ohio Woman Who Miscarried in a Toilet at 22 Weeks Is Being Charged With Abusing a Corpse

After Brittany Watts miscarried a nonviable fetus at her home, she was charged with a felony

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An Ohio woman who suffered a miscarriage at home has been charged with felony abuse of a corpse.

Brittany Watts, 33, of Warren, Ohio, miscarried at 22 weeks while using the bathroom at her home. Forensic pathologist Dr. George Sterbenz testified at the November 2 trial that there was no injury to the fetus, which had died in the womb, according to a report from WKBN.

“This fetus was going to be non-viable,” Sterbenz testified. “And it was going to be non-viable because she had premature rupture of membranes. Her water had broken early.”

Premature Rupture of Membranes — sometimes abbreviated as PROM — is when “the amniotic sac breaks before 37 weeks of pregnancy,” the Cleveland Clinic says. “The fetus can survive if your water breaks too soon. It depends on factors like the age of the pregnancy and how much amniotic fluid is left.”

But as Sternenz testified, “The fetus was too young to be delivered.”

After miscarrying, Watts attempted to plunge her toilet and then told police that she left the contents of the toilet outside the garbage, according to the coroner's office, per CNN — an act which led to the “felony abuse of a corpse” charge.

“The issue isn’t how the child died, when the child died — it’s the fact that the baby was put into a toilet, large enough to clog up a toilet, left in that toilet and she went on [with] her day,” Warren assistant prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri said in court, according to footage from WKBN.

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Records show that Watts had visited the hospital three times in four days prior to the miscarriage with vaginal bleeding. After the miscarriage she returned to the hospital, where a nurse was advised by risk management to contact the police, according to medical records obtained by The Washington Post.

“I had a mother who had a delivery at home and came in without the baby and she says the baby’s in her backyard in a bucket,” the nurse said, according to the report.

“I am grieving the loss of my baby,” Watts told The Washington Post. “I feel anger, frustration and, at times, shameful.”

The Ohio law that Watts is charged under states “No person, except as authorized by law, shall treat a human corpse in a way that the person knows would outrage reasonable family sensibilities” or “outrage reasonable community sensibilities.”

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“Ms. Watts suffered a tragic and dangerous miscarriage that jeopardized her own life. Rather than focusing on healing physically and emotionally, she was arrested and charged with a felony,” her attorney Traci Timko, told CNN in an email.

Watts’ case is pending before a Trumbull County Grand Jury.

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