Tonight, a Dothan woman is accused of a crime so horrific that veteran law enforcement officers say it has shocked even them.
At around 7:30 PM on August 13, 2023, 18-year-old JaKayla Ashanti Williams gave birth to a healthy baby boy at her suburban home located in the 1100 block of Tate Drive in Dothan, Alabama—just north of the Florida-Georgia line. There was just one problem: JaKayla was a recent high school graduate still living at home, and her family had no idea that she was even pregnant.
That was until 10 days later, on Wednesday, August 23rd, when her secret was revealed. JaKayla informed her loved ones that she had given birth at the nearby Southeast Health Medical Center but had decided not to keep the baby. Reasonably concerned about the newborn, a family member brought JaKayla to the hospital to recover her son.
Upon arrival at the facility, JaKayla informed the hospital staff exactly what she had told her family: that she had given birth 10 days earlier at the hospital and had left her son in the care of a red-headed employee. However, the hospital staff weren’t buying this and contacted law enforcement. JaKayla seemingly had no idea how hospital security works; cameras exist, and maternity wings have some of the highest security protocols in the entire hospital. After reviewing the surveillance footage for August 13th, JaKayla, of course, was nowhere to be found. That was because she never was there.
The Horrifying Admission
So, where was her newborn? Eventually, JaKayla came clean with the police. Her newborn son wasn’t in the care of hospital staff; she had thrown him away.
After giving birth to her baby boy—whom, to our knowledge, she never named—JaKayla wrapped him in a mattress protector and stuffed him inside of a duffel bag that was secured with a zipper. She then drove to a nearby apartment complex on the west side of Dothan and tossed the bag containing her newborn into a dumpster. This dumpster was equipped with a trash compactor meant to crush items. The police haven’t specifically said if the compactor was turned on while he was inside, but it is a likely possibility. It is also believed that her son was alive when she did all of this.
Why would an 18-year-old young woman with her whole life ahead of her do such a thing? JaKayla told the police exactly why: she said that she did not want to be a mother at 18 years old, and having a baby costs too much money, citing that the cost of childcare is just too high.
JaKayla’s admission shocked even the most seasoned of law enforcement officials, who became emotional when they spoke with reporters. One official stated: “I’ve never even heard of something so horrific as this. It’s just… it shocks the mind, shocks the soul. All of us, you know, it affects them. I can look at some of their eyes and see how this has affected them. I mean, how can it not?”
Officers went to the apartment complex and located the dumpster with the trash compactor attached to it. After searching through the contents at the Dothan City Landfill, they tragically found the remains of the newborn wrapped in a mattress protector inside the zipped-up duffel bag. The boy’s remains were sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Montgomery for confirmation.
Available Options and Safe Haven Laws
As Dothan Police Chief Will Benny outlined, JaKayla obviously knew that she could take a newborn to the hospital and drop it off under Alabama law with a “no questions asked” policy. She simply chose not to do that.
This case has sparked significant discussion regarding state laws. Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Alabama passed the Human Life Protection Act, which made terminating pregnancies illegal statewide. Under current Alabama law, patients traveling across state lines for such procedures can also face prosecution. However, what many might not know is that Alabama actually has one of the most liberal Safe Haven policies in the entire country.
On June 1, 2023, a law was passed that allows the surrender of infants up to 45 days old, expanding the previous three-day limit. The law allows infants to be surrendered at fire stations that operate around the clock with emergency personnel. It also authorizes the use of Safe Haven Baby Boxes—secured portals in the exterior walls of fire stations where infants can be safely placed and immediately retrieved by emergency workers inside with complete anonymity.
“Kids to Love,” a private foundation in Madison, Alabama that provides services to foster children, worked with Representative Donna Givens on this legislation and vowed to provide the first 10 Safe Haven baby boxes in Alabama through an anonymous donor. According to Kids to Love CEO Lee Marshall:
“We wanted to give women another option to safely place their baby somewhere if they decided not to parent… The way that our current law was written, when someone—probably a mom—wanted to surrender a child, they had to physically walk into a hospital and hand that baby over to hospital officials. We just felt like that was a deterrent for women to be able to safely, successfully, but also with complete anonymity, do that.”
All JaKayla needed to do was drop her baby off at a hospital or use one of these new boxes.
Legal Proceedings and Capital Charges
Now, JaKayla is facing capital homicide charges. According to Houston County District Attorney Russ Goodman, it is unclear at this juncture whether or not prosecutors will seek the death penalty against the 18-year-old. He stated that it is not something they have discussed yet and that a decision will be made down the road. Even if capital punishment is on the table, the D.A. may use it as a bargaining chip to convince JaKayla to accept a plea deal of life in prison to hasten the trial.
For those calling for the death penalty, Alabama’s statistics show it is a distinct possibility. Alabama sentences more people to death per capita than any other state, according to the Equal Justice Initiative. This is partly because Alabama allows death sentences to be passed without a unanimous jury verdict; 80% of people currently on death row in Alabama did not receive unanimous verdicts.
At the time of this recording, Alabama has 166 prisoners on death row. Of those 166 inmates, only five are women. However, all five of those women are on death row for the killing of a child, meaning that JaKayla becoming number six is a real legal possibility.
On August 25th, JaKayla made her first appearance in a Houston County court via Zoom. District Judge Benjamin Lewis asked the young woman: “JaKayla, you’re being charged with capital murder.” She replied with a simple, “Yes, sir,” and appeared dazed and confused. The hearing took less than five minutes, with her attorneys, Clay Wadsworth and Amy Cobb, along with seven family members watching in support.
JaKayla’s son’s exact cause of death has yet to be formally announced pending the full autopsy results. JaKayla did have viable choices other than abandoning her baby in a trash compactor, and from the sounds of it, her family was entirely willing to help her out.
