Update 6/15/15 – Landry was released from Lafayette Parish Correctional Center on June 12 after posting a $125,000 bond, according to booking records. Her bail had been set the day before during a bail hearing by 15th Judicial District Judge Michelle Breaux.
Landry told police she suffered from alcoholism when she gave birth at home to the baby, who lived about three days. She said the infant had noticeable breathing problems, but she didn’t seek medical care for it. An autopsy is still pending.
6/5/2015 – The decomposed body of an infant was discovered inside a self-storage unit in Lafayette, La., by a man who purchased its contents during a lien auction at Bridge Storage, 2108 Verot School Road. Police arrested Rebecca Ann Landry, 57, on suspicion of second-degree murder. Landry confessed to being the baby’s mother and hiding the dead body inside the unit in 2002, according to investigators.
The delinquent unit had been rented by Landry’s mother, who told police her daughter had access to the space to store paperwork and personal belongings, according to an affidavit. Landry told police the baby suddenly stopped breathing and died in her apartment several days after she gave birth in 2001, according to the source. Landry kept the body inside a box in her apartment “for a period time” before moving it into the storage unit in 2002, she told investigators.
Landry, who has other children, told police no one knew she had given birth and she acted alone in storing the corpse, according to the affidavit.
Authorities plan to conduct DNA testing to confirm Landry’s maternity, but investigators are confident she was the infant’s mother, Cpl. Nicole Benoit, public information officer for the Lafayette Police Department, told the source. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. Police have not released the baby’s gender.
As of Thursday, Landry was being held without bond in the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center.
