EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A Lane County jury took less than two hours to find a Springfield woman not guilty of smothering her newborn child.
Angelica Swartout testified that she faked her pregnancy and never had a baby. The state found no child’s remains.
The Register-Guard reports (http://bit.ly/KBY767) the jury of seven women and five men returned their not guilty verdict Thursday in Swartout’s second trial.
It was a markedly different outcome from Swartout’s first trial, which ended with a hung jury in February. Jury members told the newspaper after her first trial that they were one vote shy of the unanimous guilty vote needed for a murder conviction.
