Warrant: Texas parents told ‘numerous lies’ before baby’s body found in bucket of tar
A Collin County couple accused of putting their dead baby in a bucket of tar and then placing him in a shed told “numerous lies” to deceive authorities about the infant’s whereabouts, authorities said.
The couple tried to get a friend to cover for them, writing in a text, “I need you to say your baby is ours,” according to a warrant.
Roland Grabowski, 42, and Donna Grabowski, 41, of Princeton were arrested late Saturday after their baby was found wrapped in a blanket and submerged in the tar.
A relative told an investigator the baby may have died sometime between July 28 and July 30, and a neighbor told authorities it had been a week since they had seen the child, according to the warrant obtained by Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV.
The parents were in the Collin County Jail in McKinney on Thursday. They face charges that include abusing a corpse, abandoning or endangering a child, and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair a human corpse.
The warrant said the couple told a friend that 3-week-old Micah died of SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Officials with the Collin County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the baby’s cause of death.
Donna Grabowski told detectives that Micah was born at Medical Center of McKinney, but the hospital had no record of the mother or any live birth, according to the warrant.
Donna Grabowski could not give authorities the names of nurses or physicians at the hospital.
Deputies with the Collin County Sheriff’s Office responded to a “suspicious circumstances call” to the couple’s home in Collin County.
Deputes arrived at the home, but they didn’t find the couple. Cell phone records showed the couple was in Dallas at the time.
After they were located, the couple told authorities that child was being watched by a family friend, according to the warrant.
Roland Grabowski is a registered sex offender, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
He was convicted of the aggravated sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl, and the sexual assault of a child, a 14-year-old girl, in 2008, according to DPS records.
