Hidden Pregnancies, Secret Infant Murders and a Baby Mausoleum in the Garage: Inside a Mom's Grisly Spree

Mar. 15, 2025

Megan Huntsman in a 2014 booking photograph.Photo:Pleasant Grove Utah Police

Pleasant Grove Utah Police

Content warning: The following article contains disturbing details.

Huntsmankept the victims' bodies– wrapped in plastic – in a makeshift mausoleum in her garage, according to the Utah County Attorney’s Office.

Megan Huntsman at a court in Provo, Utah on Feb. 12, 2015.Rick Bowmer/AP

According to prosecutors, Huntsman later told investigators that she had killed her six babies because she was “too messed up on meth” to take care of them.

In yet another strange turn of events, relatives and neighbors said they never guessed the woman was pregnant, claiming Huntsman – a slight woman weighing just 105 lbs. – managed to successfully hide the seven pregnancies, perThe Times. Friends said they just assumed she’d gained a little weight.

But the woman did not hide every pregnancy. At the time of her arrest, Huntsman had three living daughters — two born before the killing spree began and one in the midst of it, perThe Times.

Those close to Huntsman toldThe Timesthat she claimed she was the victim of domestic abuse, although local police said there were no complaints of domestic violence at the home.

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Federal drug enforcement officers had searched the Utah home in 2005 – a year before the last killing – while investigating her husband, Darren Brad West,The Timesreported. (By 2014, the pair were estranged.) The officers found evidence of drugs in the garage but missed the deceased babies also hidden there.

Just two weeks after his indictment, someone anonymously reported to Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services that Huntsman was using methamphetamine, law enforcement officials toldThe Times, but the department then declined to elaborate on if or how social workers responded, citing confidentiality in the case.

Finally, in 2014, West’s relatives were searching in the garage when they came upon the seven tiny, plastic-wrapped, heavily decaying bodies, perThe Times.

On February 12, 2015, Huntsman, then 40, pleaded guilty to six counts of first degree murder, according to prosecutors. Later that year she was sentenced to six life sentences – three of them consecutive – and sent to a Utah State Correctional Facility, where she wasassignedOffender Number 221913.

The mother’s first parole hearing is slated for April 2064, according to prosecutors. At that time, she would be 89 years old.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

source: people.com