Charges rejected in death of baby

Prosecutors have long labeled USC student Holly Ashcraft a murderer.

The 22-year-old, they alleged, hid her pregnancy and, after secretly giving birth, dumped her newborn son in a trash bin near a popular campus hangout.

But over the last two years, two Los Angeles County Superior Court judges questioned whether there is enough evidence to charge her with murder.

On Thursday, a third judge rejected the efforts of the Los Angeles County district attorney's office to reinstate the murder charge and also tossed out a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

Instead, Judge Kathleen Kennedy said Ashcraft should face a single charge of child abuse causing death, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in state prison.

"What she's done is disturbing . . . it's disgusting . . . but I don't think the people have proven murder," Kennedy said. "The evidence is not there."

Ashcraft's attorney, Mark Geragos, argued that the baby was stillborn and that Ashcraft acted without malice in disposing of the child.

"There was absolutely no evidence this was a live birth, not one scintilla of evidence," Geragos said.

Officials in the district attorney's office declined to comment on the judge's decision. But they said that they would review court transcripts and the evidence before making any final decision on whether to appeal the judge's ruling.

Ashcraft, a native of Billings, Mont., was arrested in October 2005 and charged with abandoning her newborn son in a trash bin near her apartment north of the USC campus. Police said the child was placed inside a cardboard box and left in the bin. A homeless man picking through the trash discovered the child and called police.

Until being suspended after her arrest, Ashcraft was a third-year architecture student.

Adding to the mystery surrounding her case, Ashcraft also was investigated by police, but not arrested or charged, in April 2004 after she arrived at a Los Angeles hospital having just given birth but without a baby.

She told authorities that the child was stillborn and that she had disposed of its body. Law enforcement sources said police did not do an extensive search for the child's body because they believed too much time had passed to determine if a crime had been committed.

Ashcraft's arrest made national headlines, but the legal case quickly centered on whether her baby was alive at birth.