The Grim Discoveries in the Garage: Megan Huntsman

On the morning of the 12th of April, 2014, a 911 call came in to the dispatch centre in Pleasant Grove, Utah. When the operator picked up, there was a panicked man on the other end of the line. His name was Darren West, and he reported that he had just found something horrific inside a box in his garage. He believed that it was a miscarriage.

Police arrived at the home at 5330 E 2000 North. When they pulled up outside the single family home, they observed that the garage door was open. It appeared as though the family had been spring cleaning, with items strewn about the garage, and boxes scattered on the floor. Darren was in a state of hysteria, sitting outside the home.¹

He told the responding officers he had just been released from prison on drug manufacturing charges. He was in the process of moving back into the home that was owned by his parents, and his three daughters – ages 13, 18, and 20 – were still living there. Before he had gone to prison, he had lived there with his wife, Megan Huntsman, but they had since broken up, and she had move out of the home and was living with her new boyfriend in a trailer in Salt Lake City.²

When he arrived at the home that morning, he and his parents tackled the garage. It had always been cluttered, with piles of boxes upon piles of boxes. While clearing out a section of the garage, Darren noticed a box tightly wrapped in duct tape. Curiosity piqued, he opened the box to find a white trash bag inside, which appeared to contain something. Carefully, he unwrapped the first bag, only to find another bag within it, also wrapped in duct tape.³

With growing unease, Darren ripped off the tape and opened the second plastic bag. A foul odor immediately hit him, causing him to scrunch up his face in disgust. One of the neighbours had complained about a horrible smell coming from the garage just a few weeks earlier. To the neighbour, it smelt like the mounted deer head in the garage had gone rancid. But Darren would soon learn that it was something much more gruesome that had gone off. Peering inside the plastic bag, he was horrified to discover the lifeless body of a fully decomposed baby.⁴

Darren led police to the grisly discovery, and they found a full-term, fully decomposed baby. They obtained a search warrant for the rest of the garage, unsure of what they were going to find. As they searched, Darren called his ex-wife, Huntsman, to try and find out more. After he confronted her, she broke down into tears and told him that the baby was his and she gave birth when he was in prison. However, she said that the baby was stillborn.⁵

After the discovery of the baby, Megan Huntsman was picked up by police and taken to the interrogation room by Detective Dan Beckstrom. She was visibly upset, and she said that the baby had been born after Darren went to prison. She said that it was a stillbirth, and that she had kept the entire pregnancy secret.

While the detective spoke with Huntsman, the search at the family home continued. While searching the cluttered garage, detectives came across another cardboard box in the same condition as the one that had contained the first baby. It was sealed with duct tape. One the side, a label read: “Baby stuff ccc Megan’s.” When they opened it, they found heavy packaging and something wrapped in a plastic bag. As they lifted the bag out, a grim stench overwhelmed them. A liquid was seeping through the bottom of the bag. Carefully, they opened it and were horrified to discover the remains of a second baby. Much like the first one, it appeared to be a full term baby.

Over in the interrogation room, Huntsman was confronted about the discovery of the second baby. The detective wasn’t prepared for her response. She replied that the detectives were going to find more dead babies in the garage, and she wasn’t sure exactly how many. She maintained that they were all stillborn, and that they were all Darren’s and she had kept the pregnancies hidden.

By now, it was painfully clear to detectives that this case was much more complex than initially believed. It wasn’t incomprehensible for a woman to conceal one pregnancy and then have a stillborn, but for that to happen four times – it seemed very unplausible. Detective Beckstrom began to consider it very likely that something much more nefarious had happened – that Huntsman had hidden her pregnancies and then killed the babies after they were born.

The interrogation pressed on, and Huntsman told the detective that one of the babies she had given birth to in the bathtub had actually been born alive. She said that their heart beat for a little while before it stopped. The detective was stunned. He thought that if Huntsman had’ve wanted the baby, she would have immediately called for help the moment she realised something was wrong.

The detective was more than suspicious, and he pressed Huntsman for more information. She broke down and admitted that she had given birth to three babies and then strangled them. Back at the home, the detectives found the third body. They were packaged up in a box much more secure than the other two, with layers upon layers of duct tape. Once they opened it up, there was a plastic bag but it was wrapped up in vinyl. When they opened that up, they found a baby’s body wrapped in a plastic bag and towel. The search continued and in another cardboard box, detectives found a forth body. They were found under two blankets and two bath towels in the bottom left corner of a cubby.

But the grim findings don’t end there Detectives uncovered a fifth, sixth, and seventh baby in the garage.

Megan Huntsman was arrested and charged with six counts of murder. She had admitted to killing six of the babies, but maintained one of them was stillborn. All of the fingerprints on the boxes that contained the babies came back as a match to Huntsman, while an examination of the remains revealed that Darren was the father of them all. Since the bodies were so decomposed, a cause of death couldn’t be determined, but it was determined that five of the babies were girls and two were boys.

The news of the murders stunned the community of Pleasant Grove. It’s a small town with just one tavern and more than a dozen churches, not the expected scene for such a horrific crime. The mayor, Mike Daniels, referred to the town as “suburban America, if not smaller.”⁶

Reporters flocked to the neighbourhood to get some comments from the family’s neighbours. They all said that the family mostly kept to themselves, and just seemed like your average family. Huntsman appeared to be quiet, and some said that while they tried to be friendly to her, she didn’t seem to want to reciprocate. Some said that they noticed Huntsman’s weight fluctuating over the years, with her switching between baggy and tight clothing. But still, none of them ever realised that she was hiding a pregnancy.⁷

One of the neighbours, SanDee Wall questioned why Megan killed the seven babies, especially considering her youngest daughter was born during the same decade as the murders.⁸

According to Huntsman, at the time of the pregnancies, she had been addicted to methamphetamine and other drugs. She said to detectives that she didn’t want to deal with the responsibility of having more children. She had continued to abuse drugs throughout the pregnancies, and possibly believed that her actions would result in miscarriages, but clearly that wasn’t the case.⁹ Police Captain Mike Roberts commented: “It was completely selfish. She was high on drugs and didn’t want the babies or the responsibility. That was her priority at the time.” He said that Huntsman had told him that she needed money to fund her drug addiction, and the babies would take away from that money.¹⁰

Megan Huntsman ultimately pleaded guilty to six counts of murder. She was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 49 years.

For more information on this case, including the bodycam and interrogation footage, please watch our documentary on this case:

1. ABC – 6 WJBF, 13 April, 2014 – “Utah Woman Arrested After 7 Dead Babies Found”
2. Associated Press, 13 April, 2014 – “US Woman Arrested After 7 Dead Babies  Found”
3. Syracuse News, 15 April, 2014 – “Utah Dead Babies Mysteries”
4. FOX – 31 KDVR, 13 April, 2014 – “Police: Utah Woman Killed 7 Infants”
5. Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 13 April, 2014 – “Police Seek Answers”
6. NBC – 4 KFOR, 13 April, 2014 – “Boyfriend and Neighbours Shaken Up”
7. The Daily Beast, 16 April, 2014 – “Utah’s Murderer Mom is a Monster”
8. International Business Times, 15 April, 2014 – “Estranged Husband Claims he Never Fathered Babies”
9. The Deseret News, 9 July, 2014 – “Mom’s Alleged Meth Use”
10. The Salt Lake Tribune, 3 May, 2014 – “Search Warrant Reveals Grisly Details”