Flagler County investigators say messages sent before dawn pointed deputies to a buried infant.
PALM COAST, Fla. — What began as a predawn welfare check in Palm Coast turned into a major child death investigation Friday after deputies said they found a newborn girl buried behind a home and detained the baby’s 20-year-old mother.
By midday, the sheriff’s office had publicly identified Anne Mae Demegillo as the mother and said she was expected to face an aggravated manslaughter charge. Investigators said the baby was born at home on Thursday, was alive after birth, and later was buried in a shallow grave in the backyard. The case quickly became one of the most closely watched local investigations of the day because it tied together a private birth, social media messages, a body hidden at a home and a public accounting from deputies about what they believe happened during the child’s final hours.
The first clue, according to the sheriff’s office, came not from a hospital or a 911 call reporting labor, but from someone who asked deputies to check on Demegillo shortly after 4 a.m. Friday. The caller told dispatchers that Demegillo had sent messages saying she had secretly been pregnant and had given birth at home. Those messages also suggested the baby was born alive and crying, investigators said. Deputies went to the home and began interviewing Demegillo, who they said told them she had suffered severe abdominal pain around 3 a.m. Thursday and then delivered a child in her bathroom toilet. Officials later described the baby as a girl weighing about 3 pounds, 6 ounces and measuring 18.7 inches long. For investigators, the sequence laid out a narrow timeline stretching from the early hours of Thursday morning to the early hours of Friday, when the welfare check brought law enforcement to the house.
Chief Deputy Joseph Barile said investigators focused on the period immediately after the birth. According to Barile, Demegillo first told deputies the infant was crying, then said the child stopped moving after she walked away. He said she later told investigators she watched the newborn in the toilet until the baby stopped breathing and moving. Those statements became a central part of the sheriff’s office account because they shaped how detectives viewed the case: not as a hidden pregnancy alone, but as a death in which a living newborn was left without intervention. After that, deputies said, Demegillo placed the baby in a duffle bag in a closet rather than calling for help. Barile said she then resumed what officials described as her normal routine. Investigators said that routine included going to college classes and taking part in a theater performance in New Smyrna Beach before she returned home later that night.
Authorities said the final movement in the timeline came around 10 p.m. Thursday, when Demegillo returned to the house and buried the infant in the backyard. Barile said the baby was wrapped in a towel and placed in a grave only four to five inches deep. By the time deputies received the welfare-check call hours later, the body had already been hidden outside. The sheriff’s office said detectives from the Major Case Unit and crime scene investigators later determined that Demegillo “knowingly and purposefully” allowed the newborn to drown in the toilet. Even so, one important finding remained incomplete Friday: the medical examiner had not yet publicly issued a final cause of death. That left investigators with a strong public theory of the case but still waiting on a formal forensic result that could become important in court.
The public response from the sheriff’s office mixed criminal allegations with broader community context. Sheriff Rick Staly called the case “a heartbreaking tragedy” for the family, the community and investigators. He also pointed to Florida’s Safe Haven Law, which allows parents to surrender newborns at designated locations. The sheriff’s office said Palm Coast has a Safe Haven Baby Box at Fire Station 25, activated on Sept. 30, 2025, where a newborn may be surrendered anonymously. That detail became part of the official briefing because it underscored the contrast investigators were drawing between options they said were available and the decisions they allege were made in this case. Deputies also said their investigation indicated no one else knew Demegillo was pregnant, a detail that may explain why no one sought medical help before the birth but does not resolve what happened afterward.
Legally, the case was still in an early stage Friday. The sheriff’s office said Demegillo would be charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child and taken to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility for processing. Officials said she was not being accused of murder at that point because the evidence, as they described it, centered on abandonment and failure to act after a live birth rather than a separate act of physical violence. Court records, a first appearance hearing and any filing by the State Attorney’s Office are expected to provide the next public steps. Investigators also said the case remained active, leaving open whether more witness interviews, phone records or forensic testing could add detail to the timeline first outlined Friday.
By the end of the day, the broad shape of the case was in place: a hidden pregnancy, a bathroom birth, a dead newborn, a shallow grave and a criminal charge. What remains ahead are the formal court proceedings and the medical examiner’s report, which will help define how prosecutors present the case from here.
Author note: Last updated March 7, 2026.