Her baby was found dead under a sink. Now she's headed to prison

When police arrived at the home where Shaquita Galloway lived on April 16, 2013, they found her dead newborn wrapped in a bloody blanket and stuffed under the bathroom sink.

The baby took less than two breaths and never lived long enough to be given a first name, according to Galloway's defense attorney, Gary Smart.

Galloway, 27, the child's mother, was convicted of failing to provide adequate medical care for her newborn and received a 66-month sentence on Friday.

Smart said the mother had the mental capacity of a pre-teen and barely knew she was pregnant when she delivered her son. Galloway repeatedly told investigators that she had not been pregnant, court records show.

“This was a tragic case for everyone involved," said Dale Smith, the Tarrant County prosecutor who presented the state's case. "The jury was committed to finding justice for Baby Boy Galloway.”

The autopsy found air in the newborn's lungs and stomach, which indicated that he took at least one breath before he died, Smart said.

Galloway suffered from a severe mental deficiencies, and had an IQ of about 74, Smart said. When she was pregnant, Galloway was living in a home with religious caretakers who discouraged sex before marriage and pregnancy outside wedlock, Smart said.

Galloway never told her caretakers that she was pregnant and was afraid of being kicked out on the streets and having to live on her own, Smart said.

"She had given conflicting stories about her being pregnant," Smart said. "She tried to hide her pregnancy. The same fear that a shy 12-year-old would have is the same fear that she had. She had never lived on her own before."

Galloway must serve half of her sentence before she becomes eligible for parole, Smart said.

Case was originally bungled

The case was originally assigned to Crimes Against Children Detective Dennis Hutchins, but an arrest was never made.

Hutchins was fired in July 2016 when investigators uncovered evidence that he mishandled multiple child abuse investigations, including not making arrests when probable cause existed, failing to file cases for prosecution and failing to interview witnesses.

After a special task force was formed to audit Hutchins' cases during his 14-year career, Galloway's case was reassigned in 2016 and she was arrested on October of that year .

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, a friend of Galloway’s told officers who were called to JPS Hospital on April 17, 2013, that she and her family ran a church rescue mission and that they had taken in Galloway seven years earlier to give her a home.

The woman told the officer that the previous night, Galloway had locked herself in the bathroom for about five hours. A 9-year-old boy in the house reported hearing a baby crying inside the bathroom, according to the affidavit.

When Galloway came out of the bathroom, the friend saw that there was blood in the bathroom. Galloway was taken to JPS after the friend saw that she was bleeding, the affidavit states.

Galloway denied to poilice that she had been pregnant or had given birth.

Concerned that a newborn's life might be in danger, Fort Worth polices entered the house in the 900 block of East Annie Street found the newborn’s body under the bathroom sink.

Galloway later admitted to investigators that the baby cried briefly and was breathing when she out him on the floor so she could take a shower. When she got out of the shower the baby had stopped breathing so she covered him with a bloody towel and placed him under the sink, she said.

“When asked why she didn’t tell anyone that she was pregnant or that she had a baby,” Galloway said that she was afraid of getting kicked out of her house, the affidavit stated.

Galloway denied harming her baby but also said she did nothing to help him live, it said.

'Disappointed they found her guilty'

A search of the residence revealed that Galloway had received a medical assistant college diploma in 2011, graduating with a 3.29 GPA and was certified in CPR, the affidavit stated.

Much was made about Galloway's education accomplishments during the trial, but Smart said her achievements are misleading.

"You have a poor woman with mental deficiencies and I don't think the general public understood the depths of her deficiencies and did not understand how that would cause her to react to situations such as giving birth," Smart said.

Galloway graduated from high school, attending special education classes, and did receive a diploma for completing the medical assistant program course from a for-profit college in Fort Worth, Smart said.

But Galloway's training did not give her the skills she needs to perform any type of medical procedure, Smart said. Galloway is prepared to be an office assistant — take names and phone numbers, get coffee, things like that, Smart said.

But Galloway was never able to pass the standardized test that she needed to pass to be credentialed to work as a medical assistant, Smart said.

"I was very disappointed they found her guilty," Smart said. "I wanted to try and keep her out of the penitentiary. I had hoped the penitentiary was not going to be an option. Hopefully, she will be given some level of protection there, but she will be very vulnerable in that situation."

This article contains material from Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published March 23, 2018 at 7:49 PM with the headline "Her baby was found dead under a sink. Now she's headed to prison."