![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/03\/smithcoutnlady-200x200.jpg\")
SMITH COUNTY – A mother has been sentenced to 10 months in jail, one year after deputies found her newborn dead in a bathtub. According to our news partner KETK, the Smith County Sheriff\u2019s deputies were alerted by a hospital emergency room in March 2025 after a woman reported she had delivered a placenta at home earlier that day. <\/p>\n
But, when the woman, 27-year-old Esmeralda Duran Rodriguez, arrived at the hospital, staff noted she did not have a baby with her. Deputies then went to her home to investigate, where they met with Rodriguez\u2019s brother, who allowed them to search for the baby. They found the placenta on a bed along with a severed umbilical cord, according to a sheriff’s office press release.<\/p>\n
\u201cInitially, no infant was located; however, due to the circumstances and the likelihood of a birth taking place at the residence, the Deputies continued searching,\u201d the Smith County Sheriff\u2019s Office said. \u201cA short time later, the body of an infant was located deceased in a bathtub wrapped inside a towel, which had been further secreted in a tied plastic grocery bag.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Rodriguez pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse without legal authority and was sentenced to 10 months in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SMITH COUNTY – A mother has been sentenced to 10 months in jail, one year after deputies found her newborn dead in a bathtub. According to our news partner KETK, the Smith County Sheriff\u2019s deputies were alerted by a hospital emergency room in March 2025 after a woman reported she had delivered a placenta at … Continue reading Mother sentenced in dead newborn case<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1493088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/03\/smithcoutnlady-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1492844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 21:18:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/03\/smithcoutnlady-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1492844"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1493534,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492844\/revisions\/1493534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1493088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1492844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1492844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1492844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}