Authorities say no additional charges will be filed against a high school student accused of having discarded her newborn in a bathroom trash can at her central Pennsylvania high school.
Nineteen-year-old Cherlie LaFleur was charged in Lancaster County with concealing the death of a child, a misdemeanor, after the baby was found in April at McCaskey East High School.
Coroner Stephen Diamantoni said the infant died of inadequate oxygen to the brain, but he cannot say whether that happened before or after birth.
"There is no way of knowing whether cessation of the heartbeat occurred prior to or after delivery," Diamantoni told LancasterOnline.com.
District Attorney Craig Stedman cited the coroner's findings in saying that his office would not pursue more serious charges.
Defense attorney James Gratton said earlier that his client, who moved to Pennsylvania from Haiti with her family after the 2010 earthquake, told him the child was stillborn.
"She's a terrified kid who has been through things in her young life that most of us cannot even imagine," he told Lancaster Online.
