Family defends teen mom accused of killing baby

Robert Hecker remembers the morning of Jan. 22, when his teen daughter gave birth to a baby boy — while sitting on a toilet in their Mesa home — before the child died.

Nearly 11 months later, Mesa police arrested the teen mother in connection with the newborn's death. Tiffany Lee Hecker, 19, was booked Tuesday morning on suspicion of homicide and child abuse, police said.

VIDEO: Tribune reporter Nicole Beyer interviews Tiffany Hecker's father

Teen mom killed newborn, Mesa police say

Read PDF of court documents

“My daughter felt an urge to go to the bathroom, came out about five minutes later and says she had a baby,” Robert Hecker said.

Hecker said his daughter, who was 18 at the time, returned to the family’s house in the 2800 block of East Concho Avenue from her boyfriend’s house about 2 a.m. Hecker said his daughter was complaining of stomach pains.

But he said nobody, including his daughter, knew she was pregnant.

“She didn’t have a belly,” said her brother, 21-year-old Scott Hecker.

East Mesa Justice of the Peace Court paperwork reveals that Tiffany Hecker gave birth about 5:30 a.m. She picked up her baby and held him before putting him back in the toilet. Then, she sat back down and delivered the placenta.

“The baby didn’t scream,” Robert Hecker said. "It made kind of a breath noise, and she saw the chest move, and that was the only motion he had. From that point, she said it was lifeless."

Mesa police detective Chris Arvayo said the family did not call 911. Instead, Robert Hecker said his wife called the family doctor, who may have given them bad advice.

“Basically, the doctor told her to dispose of it,” Hecker said. “You have to consider the fact that my wife had not seen a full term baby and was under the impression that it was a fetus.”

Arvayo said the teen's mother, Joy Hecker, told her daughter to put the baby in a plastic garbage bag and put him in a trash bin outside the home.

Court records indicate that the grandmother did not look at the baby before giving this instruction.

Tiffany Hecker followed her mother's instructions and put the baby in the trash bin. But court records allege she later took the baby out of the trash, and the two women drove to Chandler Regional Hospital “with the baby, placenta and the towels in the trunk of the car.”

In an interview, police said Tiffany Hecker “denies drowning, smothering or injuring the baby either intentionally or accidental.”

But, the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s report ruled the baby’s death a homicide. “The baby did not die of natural causes,” Arvayo said.

Tiffany Hecker’s family said she’s innocent of any wrongdoing.

“I would like for people to understand that it is possible to go though a pregnancy, under a doctor’s care, that he missed,” Robert Hecker said. “None of us had any clue, even my daughter, that she was pregnant.”