PORT ANGELES — A 16-year-old girl, described by her attorney as a child who has lost a child, was charged with first- and second-degree murder in the death of her newborn son on Wednesday.
Lauryn Louise Last will be tried as an adult, said Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly.
Before the hearing, she was not identified because she is a minor.
The maximum punishment for first- and second-degree murder is life in prison and a $50,000 fine, Clallam County Superior Court Judge George Wood said.
In a 16-minute hearing on Wednesday, Wood set the girl’s arraignment for 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 16.
Last is accused of drowning her son in a toilet bowl after giving birth to him a little after 3 a.m. on Dec. 30, then disposing of the body in a trash bin outside her father’s 12th Street house in Port Angeles.
She remained in custody on Wednesday in the Clallam County Juvenile Services Detention Facility with bail set at $500,000.
“This is an absolute tragedy with more and more details coming in all the time,” said defense attorney Suzanne Hayden, of the Port Angeles Public Defenders Office, after the hearing.
“This was a child who didn’t even know she was in labor,” she said.
“She would not have kept the baby. She would have given it up for adoption, but she did want this baby alive. That makes it all the more tragic,” Hayden said.
“She just lost a child and she is only 16 — a child herself.”
Last’s father
Last’s father, Ronald Eugene Last Jr., will be arraigned Friday on felony charges of possession of a firearm and possession of methamphetamine and the misdemeanor charge of concealing birth.
Port Angeles Police Department investigators believe Ronald Eugene Last Jr. knew about the baby in the trash bin and did not report it.
He is being held in the Clallam County jail on $10,000 bail.
After searching through 60 tons of trash near Tacoma — where Port Angeles trash is taken — on Monday, officials found the body of an infant in a plastic bag.
DNA testing to confirm the infant’s parentage might not be available for a month or more, Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher said earlier this week.
Gallagher has said that the girl had concealed her pregnancy from at least some people, and that the alleged father was a man in his mid-30s in Colorado.
She had moved to Port Angeles in October from Pueblo, Colo., where she had lived with her mother, Dawn Harris.
During the hearing, Kelly requested an amendment to the no-contact order against Ronald Eugene Last Jr. to include a list of people who have not been interviewed in the investigation.
Hayden objected.
Last is related to some of the people on the list, including her sister and mother, who live in Colorado, she said.
“I don’t see how talking to her mother or sister, who are both outside of the state, would cause any problems with the state as far as the investigation,” Hayden told the judge.
Wood granted a no-contact order unless an attorney is present, with the understanding that the orders would be temporary, at least in the case of Last’s mother and sister.
Kelly said that the fact that the public defender’s office is representing Last’s father is a conflict of interest and told the judge that the defense attorneys should resolve that conflict before the trial begins.
After the hearing, Hayden described her client as “depressed and sad.”
“I am an adoptive mother myself, and I think one of the first reactions from everyone is sadness at the loss of the baby,” she said.
“We think of the home that it could have had.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
