Jury finds York County SC mother guilty of baby homicide in 1992 cold case river death
A South Carolina mother faces up to life in prison after a jury found her guilty of homicide by child abuse almost 31 years to the day after her baby was found dead in a river, according to prosecutors and court records.
Stacy Michelle Rabon, 50, was convicted late Friday night after a weeklong trial at the Moss Justice Center in York, prosecutors John Anthony and Leslie Robinson of the 16th Circuit Solicitor’s Office said in a written statement.
Judge Bill McKinnon said sentencing would be Aug. 21, prosecutors said in the statement.
‘Baby Angel Hope’
The female infant, named “Baby Angel Hope” by the community who buried her without identification in 1992, would have turned 31 Saturday.
The baby girl was found dead in the river on Aug. 12, 1992. The baby was wrapped in a sheet inside a plastic bag.
The death was unsolved for almost three decades. The baby was not identified until 2021 when York County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Rabon. Officers and prosecutors said DNA taken from Rabon after her 2019 conviction for drugs matched DNA from the baby.
The baby had been born healthy but had been stabbed and suffocated, prosecutors said in the trial. The child had cocaine in its system, prosecutors said during the trial.
Hung jury on murder charge
Rabon was tried on charges of homicide by child abuse and murder.
The 12-member jury was unanimous in convicting Rabon of homicide by child abuse, prosecutors Anthony and Robinson said. The jury hung on a charge of murder, according to the prosecutors.
Jurors deliberated much of Friday after trial testimony started Tuesday.
The Herald exclusively reported earlier this week that the trial was starting 31 years after the baby was found dead.
What happens now?
McKinnon, the judge, has discretion to sentence Rabon up to life in prison for the homicide by child abuse charge, South Carolina law states.
Anthony and Robinson declined comment to The Herald on the conviction, pending Rabon’s sentencing hearing on Aug. 21.
Rabon has been in the York County jail since her arrest in August 2021 and remains there without bail pending sentencing, court and jail records show.
Rabon has the legal right to appeal the conviction.
Efforts to reach Rabon’s lead defense lawyer, 16th Circuit Deputy Public Defender Phil Smith, were unsuccessful Saturday.
This story was originally published August 12, 2023 at 9:00 AM.
