A lengthy grand jury investigation into the outcome of Rebecca A. Corneau's pregnancy quietly ended late last month after prosecutors concluded that the member of an Attleboro religious sect had given birth to a dead baby boy last year.
The decision to end the investigation was based on input from a medical expert and sworn statements from witnesses who said they saw Corneau's husband, David P. Corneau, help his wife deliver a stillborn in a Rehoboth house, according to prosecutors Gerald FitzGerald and Adam Narris.
Mindful that another baby in the sect was starved to death and secretly buried, authorities had been trying since January to determine what happened to Rebecca Corneau's newborn.
The Corneaus -- who were jailed from Feb. 5 to June 18 -- had maintained that the baby was a stillborn, but they refused to surrender his remains.
The closure of the grand jury investigation wasn't made public until yesterday, when FitzGerald released a June 29 memo that he and Narris wrote for the county's district attorney.
The Corneaus' lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., praised prosecutors and criticized judges for failing to uphold the rights of people who belong to "an unpopular group."
"We are relieved that the district attorney and grand jury concluded that David and Rebecca have been telling the truth about the stillbirth of their child and that they committed no crime whatsoever, Carney said.
"It took the integrity of Dist. Atty. Paul Walsh and the grand jury to bring this matter to a close," he added.
FitzGerald's memo did not reveal the gender of the stillborn baby, but he said yesterday the baby was a boy. The memo discloses that both Corneaus gave detailed descriptions of the stillbirth that occurred sometime in mid- to late-November at 15 Brook St.
David Corneau described the fetus's smell and the wrinkled appearance of its peeling skin, according to the memo. The grand jury investigation also yielded statements from five "eye-witnesses" who were at the Brook Street home during the stillbirth. All of them said the baby was dead when it was delivered, the memo said.
Transcripts of the witnesses' observations were submitted to an expert on prenatal care, obstetrics and gynecology.
The expert, whom the memo does not identify, analyzed the various accounts. The observations were consistent with the delivery of an infected stillborn that had been dead for at least 24 to 48 hours, the expert said.
". . . it appears that Rebecca Corneau did, in fact, have a stillbirth. . ." the prosecutors' memo concludes. "As a consequence, with no evidence to support any contrary conclusion, nor any evidence to support any criminal charges, the grand jury investigation is closed."
It appeared yesterday that the location of the Corneau baby's remains would remain unknown.
Carney declined comment when he was asked if the Corneaus would help authorities recover the remains.
The memo noted that prosecutors gave witnesses in the case immunity for any misdemeanor violations of laws against the improper disposal of human remains.
"The only witness with knowledge of the whereabouts of the remains refused to disclose its location, claiming a privilege against self-incrimination," the memo said.
