‘Kill the kid’: Texts add to case against college student charged with killing newborn

A Florida college student from Mississippi has been charged with aggravated manslaughter, having been accused of killing her newborn baby and throwing the body in the trash. Text messages from the student prior to the incident reportedly joked about how “Plan C was to kill the kid.”

Key Takeaways:

• The lifeless body of a baby girl was found in a dumpster outside McKay Hall at the University of Tampa.

• Brianna Moore has been arrested and is accused of suffocating her daughter after giving birth.

• In months-old text messages, she and an unidentified male joked about how Plan B was to use “the pill,” and Plan C was to “kill the kid.”

The Details:

Police say Brianna Moore, age 19, gave birth in her dorm room at McKay Hall in April of 2024 and then suffocated her baby girl to death before throwing her body in the dumpster.

Moore, however, claims her daughter died naturally minutes after being born. Moore claimed she didn’t know she was pregnant, and upon first being questioned by police, she told them, “… I just woke up not feeling good yesterday morning. So I went to the bathroom. … After a few seconds, it was dead.”

Former UTampa student accused of leaving newborn in trash can back in court

But the Tampa Bay Times listed a more detailed synopsis of events:

She awoke the morning of April 27, 2024 — a Saturday. She’d struggled all night to sleep and didn’t feel well. She noticed her pants were wet, she said.

She quickly realized what was happening. She went into the bathroom and stayed there for about the next 90 minutes.

She threw up. She lay on the floor, paralyzed in pain.

The baby came. She heard it cry. She held it.

She was asked how long it cried.

“I would say, like, five seconds,” she said.

Her roommate and one of the girls next door heard the noise, they later told police, but dismissed it. One thought it might have been a video playing on a phone. When one neighbor readied for work, she tried the door, found it locked and heard Moore say, “Sorry.”

Moore laid the baby on a towel, she said. She took a shower, then tried to clean the blood from the floor. She sat for a long time.

“It wasn’t moving, so I felt for a heartbeat, and I didn’t feel one,” she said. “It wasn’t moving, and I got scared.”

She told investigators that she then wrapped the baby in the towel. She came out of the bathroom about 9:45 a.m., she said. She set the baby on the floor near an ottoman and took a nap.

She awoke about 11 a.m. and checked the baby again. It still wasn’t breathing.

That afternoon, her neighbors called campus security after seeing blood on the bathroom floor. A report of the call said a student had possibly suffered a miscarriage. Moore denied giving birth, saying she just had her period.

Moore alleges that when she woke from her nap and found the baby still wasn’t breathing, she put the baby girl’s body into a trash bag and threw her away.

The medical examiner’s autopsy found the manner of the baby girl’s death was “asphyxia due to compression of the torso with rib fractures.” She had multiple small hemorrhages in her lungs.

Text messages discovered between Moore and an unnamed man in her home state of Mississippi from September 2023 — seven months before she gave birth — revealed a disturbing mindset. The man asked if abortion was legal in Florida, to which Moore replied, “no but there is a pill you can order in any state.”

After talking about sex and getting pregnant, Moore wrote, “[H]ey man sometimes you need a plan c.” The man responded, “[P]lan a was condoms. [P]lan b was the pill. [P]lan c was to kill (the) kid.”

“[P]lan c is my favorite,” Moore replied.

A forensic neuropsychologist who spoke with Moore months later believes Moore was in denial about being pregnant, adding that she had “a passive personality” and “was emotionally immature.”

Commentary:

“It breaks my heart to know that this baby girl could still be alive today if this woman had alerted authorities that she needed help,” State Attorney Suzy Lopez said in a statement. “Instead, she took actions that directly lead to the death of her newborn baby. This is a difficult and nuanced case to prosecute, and our community must continue to educate women about the many resources available to them in situations like this one. This baby’s death was avoidable.”

Florida, like most states, has a Safe Haven Law allowing infants to be anonymously surrendered up to 30 days at any hospital or fire station. Moore appeared to be aware of this, allegedly telling law enforcement she had thought about going to the hospital and surrendering the baby girl there. She asked one officer, “Because you can do that, can’t you?” The officer confirmed this.

“For crying out loud, there’s a fire station across the street from the University of Tampa,” Lopez said during a press conference. “Tampa General Hospital is a mere two to three minutes away by car.”

What to Expect:

Moore’s trial is set to begin later this month. She could face up to 30 years in prison.

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