Prosecutors: Mom could have saved baby

A former Lake in the Hills woman accused of involuntary manslaughter in the death of her newborn son could have saved his life, but failed to act to keep him alive, a McHenry County prosecutor said Thursday.

Addressing the case for the first time since a grand jury indicted Lyndsey R. Tucker on Wednesday, Nichole Owens, the criminal division chief for the McHenry County state's attorney's office, said the charges allege Tucker should have known her newborn was suffocating under a placenta membrane that covered his face at birth.

"Her actions were reckless and they resulted in the death of the infant," Owens said.

Authorities say Tucker, 26, secretly gave birth to a live, healthy boy in July while staying in her boyfriend's Harvard-area apartment.

But the boy, according to the McHenry County coroner's office, was born with a membrane covering his mouth and nose, eventually causing him to suffocate. The condition occurs in about 1 of every 1,000 births, but the membrane can easily be removed to allow the newborn's breathing, according to testimony at a coroner's inquest.

Tucker's boyfriend, who was determined to be the father through DNA testing, later found the dead boy wrapped in a plastic bag and placed under a bathroom sink.

The charges do not claim Tucker intended for her son to die.

"We are alleging she failed to take action," Owens said. "She should have known that would cause his death."

Tucker, who also faces a charge of concealing a homicide, could face up to 14 years in prison if found guilty. Her attorney, Lawrence Wolf Levin, declined comment through an assistant Thursday.

At the time of the boy's birth, Tucker was free on bond while awaiting trial on two federal bank robbery charges alleging she held up banks in Lake in the Hills and Algonquin in February. She had been living in Lake in the Hills when the robberies occurred but moved in with her boyfriend after released on bond.

Authorities say Tucker managed to hide her pregnancy from her boyfriend, mother and others around her by blaming her weight gain on prescription medication she was taking for bipolar and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Nobody but she knew of the pregnancy, police said, until she was rushed to Centegra Memorial Medical Center in Woodstock when her boyfriend found her bleeding shortly after the birth. Doctors at the hospital determined she had given birth and sent her boyfriend home to search for the child.

The boy's father is not under investigation and will not be charged, Owens said.

"He's been a cooperating witness," she said.