Nikki Beecroft17-years old

Tartan High School

April 9, 2007

Oakdale newborn's grisly death: Stabbed 135 times

By Jim Adams and Joy Powell, Star Tribune

A 17-year-old student at Tartan High School stabbed the girl repeatedly after giving birth in the laundry room, charges say.

A 17-year-old Oakdale girl told police she gave birth on the laundry room floor early Monday, then panicked and stabbed the baby girl after seeing her move a finger.

The baby, found by investigators in a bloody garbage bag outside the teen's home, had 135 stab wounds, many in her tiny chest. The Ramsey County medical examiner's office said the baby was born alive and bled to death.

Nicole M. Beecroft was charged with first-degree premeditated murder Thursday in Washington County District Court.

County Attorney Douglas Johnson noted that state law allows mothers to leave infants at any hospital within 72 hours of birth with no legal consequences. "She could have walked away and the baby would have been adopted by a family that wanted it," he said. "Instead she destroys two lives: her own and the baby’s. We don't know what motivated her," Johnson said.

It's unclear how long Beecroft had known she was pregnant. Her mother told police she did not know about her daughter's pregnancy. Friends and co-workers said Thursday that they had no clue.

According to the criminal complaint, Beecroft initially told police that she went to the bathroom about 3 a.m. Monday and "something didn't feel right." So she spread a towel on the laundry room floor, lay down and gave birth.

She originally told police that the baby was stillborn and that she lay with it for 10 to 20 minutes. Then she threw the body in a trash can outside their home, she said.

But after investigators found the baby, bloody towels and a knife in a trash can early Wednesday, they confronted the teenager again. This time, she told them she saw the baby move her finger and she panicked and stabbed her.

Johnson said the girl told investigators that she thought the trash hauler had taken away the bag with the body.

On Tuesday, St. Paul police received an anonymous report that a cashier at the Cub Foods in Sun Ray Plaza named Nikki Beecroft had had a stillborn baby and threw it in the garbage. Police went to the grocery store and confirmed that Beecroft was a cashier there, but the manager said she had called in sick the past two days.

The teenager, a senior at Tartan High School in Oakdale, had left for work at Cub when police arrived at her home about 8 p.m. Tuesday. The girl's mother told police she didn't know her overweight daughter was pregnant. She allowed officers to search her daughter's bedroom, where they found adult diapers, which Beecroft's mother said the girl was using because of a heavy period.

Investigators searched the Beecrofts' home early Wednesday and found the baby's body.

The teen was arrested at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday and is being held in the Washington County juvenile detention center.

An attorney will be appointed and bail will be set today, Johnson said. No one else is expected to be charged.

Johnson said Beecroft has told police the name of the person she believes is the father.

No one answered the door Thursday at the Beecroft home, and family members could not be reached.

On her Myspace.com page, Beecroft wrote that she "dearly" loves her boyfriend of 16 months, never reads books and loves dead rapper Tupac and singer Mariah Carey. She wrote that her hero is her mom.

Anonymous caller

Similar 1993 caseThe death of the baby is eerily similar to a 1993 case of a 16-year-old Forest Lake girl. She kept her

pregnancy hidden and was convicted of stabbing her child and burying it in the yard, Johnson said. The law was different then and she was tried as a juvenile and held until she was 19. Today, teens 14 and older charged with first-degree murder are automatically certified to stand trial as adults and face adult sentences, he said.

Pregnancy kept secret Neighbors in Oakdale and co-workers at Cub said Thursday that they didn't even know Beecroft was

pregnant.

The news shocked Darius Branson, 17, who was collecting carts in the Cub parking lot Thursday night.

"She was just big," said Branson, who stood, mouth agape, when a reporter told him of the murder charges.

"My God, that's terrible," said Hassan Hassan, 17, another Cub employee who knows Beecroft. "I don't know what this world is doing, teen-agers having babies and killing them. No use having babies if you're not going to take care of them."

In Beecroft's neighborhood, not far from Interstate Hwy. 694, high school students Kong Lor, 17, and Vathana Chhom, 18, said Tartan High teachers talked about the baby's death at school Thursday. Chhom said they encouraged kids in similar straits to seek help, talk to family, friends, a school counselor, anyone whom they trust.

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