“Why would you be sorry? Why would you be sorry, Patience?”
Patience Rousseau, then 26, was shivering on the doorstep of the home she was dwelling in with her two kids because the sheriff’s deputy repeated her query.
The Humboldt County, Nevada, sheriff’s deputy was questioning Rousseau about a Facebook post she had made a few weeks earlier that expressed grief about her stillbirth and talked about the identify she gave her child posthumously, physique digital camera footage reveals.
“I’m so sorry, Abel,” Rousseau had written in the post.
The mom was in shock that day in May 2018 as a number of regulation enforcement officers, some in tactical gear, stood exterior the agricultural Winnemucca dwelling to serve a search warrant.
“I had a miscarriage, OK? A miscarriage. Why are you guys here over a f**king miscarriage?” Rousseau responded to the deputy.
The single mom, who was already struggling to afford take care of her two younger boys, was coping with sophisticated emotions of ambivalence and guilt about her unplanned being pregnant and stillbirth, her legal professional stated. Rousseau instructed the deputies she had been taking giant portions of cinnamon and lifting heavy issues whereas pregnant “to have a miscarriage.”
Deputies walked to a cross that was painted pink with Abel’s identify written in black on a inexperienced plot behind the home, in accordance with the police physique digital camera footage and a police report. They dug up the stays and carried them to a regulation enforcement car, the report stated.
Two days later, Rousseau was arrested and charged with felony manslaughter earlier than she was convicted in Nevada, the place abortion is legal, underneath what legal specialists say is a obscure and broadly written statute that makes it a crime for any girl to take medication with the intent to terminate a being pregnant. She was additionally charged with concealing beginning, a misdemeanor, but was not convicted on that cost.
Rousseau’s case matches into an rising sample the place ladies are swept up in criminalization – even in states the place abortion is legal – by prosecutors reaching for antiquated statutes or legal guidelines that have been by no means supposed to punish pregnant ladies and these experiencing being pregnant loss or beginning, together with abuse of a corpse, baby neglect and even murder, in accordance with a number of abortion regulation specialists NCS spoke with.
“There’s been a really dedicated effort to criminalize pregnancy outcomes alongside abortion,” stated the legal director of nonprofit Pregnancy Justice, Karen Thompson.
There has been a notable uptick in these instances, in a separate but parallel lane to instances linked to stricter anti-abortion legal guidelines, for the reason that US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and stripped the federal constitutional proper to abortion, the specialists stated. The US noticed the best quantity on document of individuals criminally charged for conduct associated to being pregnant in the primary 12 months after the choice, according to data from nonprofit legal advocacy group Pregnancy Justice.
For Rousseau, the complete ordeal was traumatic, from the stillbirth to being arrested. “I thought I was doing what was right for my circumstances, and then to be told that I was wrong, right after going through all of that alone … and then to be punished for all of it without getting any sort of help mentally has hurt me so much,” she instructed NCS.
Rousseau served over two years in prison earlier than her conviction was vacated in 2021, with the choose saying her public defender was overworked and ineffectively suggested her to enter a responsible plea. She was awarded a $100,000 settlement this February, in accordance with court docket paperwork.
Judge Charles McGee wrote in a strongly worded resolution that Rousseau’s case “ranks right up there with a thankfully precious few cases involving a total miscarriage of justice.”
‘I didn’t perceive why they have been there’
Before she went to prison, Rousseau’s life was outlined by fixed change – from the numerous occasions she had moved to the roles she labored.
At 14 years outdated, she may insulate a home “better than most men” and assemble a roof in excessive heels, she stated. As far as jobs go, Rousseau has carried out “pretty much everything,” together with bartending, detailing vehicles and cleansing motels and Airbnbs.
Her favourite job was working as a taxi driver for 15 years as a result of she may lend a sympathetic ear to passengers once they wanted it most.
But on the day regulation enforcement confirmed up on her doorstep, Rousseau says she was the one who wanted that assist.
Rousseau was crying whereas sitting on the porch steps with her arms folded throughout her chest as deputies instructed her they have been attempting to determine whether or not this was a “viable baby that you miscarried,” the physique digital camera footage from 2018 confirmed.
Then-Deputy Jacqueline Mitcham requested her to estimate how large her stomach was, prompted her to exhibit the scale of the newborn with her arms, and requested her why she didn’t name 911.
“I didn’t want to get put in the hospital,” Rousseau defined. “Who’s gonna take care of my kids?”
She repeatedly instructed the deputies she didn’t understand how far alongside she was in the being pregnant and had carried out nothing mistaken. She defined she was simply mendacity in mattress when the stillbirth occurred.
“Have you given much thought about why that happened?” requested Mitcham.
“Because I did everything I could to have a miscarriage,” the mom replied, saying she ingested cinnamon – which she learn on-line may naturally finish a being pregnant. She additionally instructed authorities her automobile broke down a lot and that she needed to push the car when it did.
But medical doctors would later testify there was no scientific proof the actions Rousseau described had precipitated the stillbirth – a level the choose later cited in his order vacating her conviction.
Cases like Rousseau’s are sophisticated and nuanced, because it’s frequent for girls who’ve blended emotions about a being pregnant that ends in a stillbirth or miscarriage to expertise guilt, her lawyer Laura Fitzsimmons, who led the hassle to vacate Rousseau’s conviction, stated.
The mom defined to deputies she had made an appointment to get an abortion at a clinic about 165 miles away in Reno, but she was “stranded” in the agricultural city with no method to get there as a result of her automobile had damaged down. With two kids already, she had no job or any assist from mates and household. Having confronted homelessness and poverty, Rousseau stated she felt she couldn’t care for one other baby.
When Mitcham requested if she used any medication, Rousseau stated she solely smoked weed.
Navigating challenges was nothing new for Rousseau who stated she had suffered abuse all through her childhood and into maturity. She stated she moved dozens of occasions whereas rising up – from varied cities in South Dakota, then in Colorado, Wyoming and Washington.
But she has at all times tried to make the most effective out of what she has, working onerous to pay for daycare whilst she struggled to search out inexpensive housing in order that she and her kids didn’t should dwell in a automobile, Rousseau stated.
The day officers confirmed up, nevertheless, stands proud as one of many hardest days of her life. Rousseau stated she watched as authorities dug up Abel’s stays.
“I didn’t understand why they were there and didn’t understand what I had done so wrong to deserve to be treated the way I was,” Rousseau stated.
She additionally needed to relive the traumatic evening of shedding the kid. She tearfully instructed deputies throughout an interrogation two days after they visited the house how she had woken up bleeding closely and in ache, how she had tried to present the newborn CPR and how she buried him in the yard.
The mom tried to elucidate the shock and worry she felt that evening – though she had hoped to lose the being pregnant as a result of she couldn’t afford to lift one other baby.
“I struggle to get them diapers, and I struggle to get milk in the house,” she instructed investigators. “We haven’t had food in two weeks because no one will give us a ride to town.”
She can be booked on manslaughter prices on the finish of that interview, crying and pleading with deputies, saying she’d carried out nothing mistaken as they took her into custody, footage confirmed.
A charging doc accused her of unlawfully killing an unborn baby by “beating her abdomen and/or consuming drugs or other substances.”
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department declined to touch upon the case in opposition to Rousseau when contacted by NCS and stated Mitcham is not with the division.
The 1911 statute underneath which Rousseau was charged is written so broadly that a vary of issues – smoking weed, cigarettes or taking a substance like cinnamon – could possibly be used as a foundation for conviction, in accordance with Fitzsimmons and Farah Diaz-Tello, a lawyer for a reproductive justice group that labored on Rousseau’s case.
And Rousseau isn’t alone. Cases involving ladies who’re criminalized for a miscarriage, stillbirth or self-managed abortion in varied states have change into way more frequent, in accordance with Diaz-Tello, who says they now symbolize a “bulk of our cases,” at her agency If When How.
One of these ladies is Moira Akers, who was sentenced in 2022 to 30 years in prison for second-degree homicide and a concurrent sentence of 20 years for baby abuse ensuing in loss of life after her child was stillborn in an at-home supply, stated Diaz-Tello, whose agency represented Akers throughout trial.
Akers was convicted in Maryland, the place abortion is legal, after prosecutors claimed her prior web searches about abortion early in her being pregnant and lack of prenatal care have been “highly relevant” for the costs of homicide and first-degree baby abuse, in accordance with court docket paperwork.
“Like Patience’s case, this case is built on stigma, not facts. There are many reasons folks may consider an abortion early in their pregnancy—deciding whether or not to continue a pregnancy is a normal thing that many of us will do in our lives,” Diaz-Tello stated.
Akers’ conviction was additionally reversed by the Supreme Court of Maryland, and she is awaiting a new trial this summer season, Diaz-Tello stated.
The Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case, instructed NCS Akers is “alleged to have murdered her newborn infant and then hid the baby’s body in her closet.” Given the case is pending trial, the workplace stated it “cannot comment further.”
Similarly, Brittany Watts was charged in 2023 with felony abuse of a corpse after she had a miscarriage and left the nonviable fetus at home in Ohio, court docket data present. A 12 months later, a grand jury dismissed the case, concluding inadequate proof for an indictment in opposition to Watts, in accordance with the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s workplace.
There have been no less than 412 prison instances associated to being pregnant, being pregnant loss or beginning in the two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, most of which have been in opposition to folks with low revenue and almost all alleging substance use throughout being pregnant, in accordance with information from Pregnancy Justice. While the instances have been introduced in each blue and pink states, the overwhelming majority befell in Alabama and Oklahoma, the info confirmed.
While there isn’t a single pattern in the varieties of legal guidelines used, such instances have emerged in the backdrop of elevated hostility in opposition to reproductive rights and are fueled by anti-abortion rhetoric and stigma, stated Thompson and Diaz-Tello.
Prosecutors have “overwhelmingly charged” pregnant folks underneath statutes that don’t require them to show the particular person truly harmed the fetus or toddler, the report stated. In that two-year interval, a lot of the instances have been linked to baby abuse, neglect or endangerment prices, information confirmed.
Three purchasers of Thompson’s legal advocacy nonprofit are at present going through homicide prices based mostly on having a stillbirth, she stated.
Fitzsimmons, a lawyer who helped shield reproductive rights in a Nevada 1990 referendum, was planning to retire quickly when she heard about Rousseau’s case from a girl who had labored for Planned Parenthood, she stated.
“She called and she said, ‘Did you know there’s a woman in prison in Nevada for terminating her own pregnancy?” Fitzsimmons stated. “I thought this woman was crazy because it couldn’t happen. But boy was I wrong.”
She began representing Rousseau in 2020, professional bono, and filed a wrongful conviction criticism after figuring out the case was a “gold mine for relief.”
Fitzsimmons introduced in a number of medical specialists who testified in 2021 that there was no scientific proof to assist any causal affiliation between Rousseau’s behaviors throughout being pregnant and its end result.
Washoe County medical expert Dr. Laura Knight, who carried out the post-mortem on Rousseau’s baby, estimated the gestational age of the fetus to be between 28 and 32 weeks, but testified it was unimaginable to substantiate the age or reason behind loss of life, or to say whether or not there have been any indicators of life after the stillbirth.
A toxicity report had detected methamphetamine in the newborn’s fetal tissue, but neither that nor Rousseau’s marijuana use, nor lifting heavy objects and taking cinnamon capsules – even in mixture – would “either cause a stillbirth or premature labor,” Knight testified.
Citing Rousseau’s “extensive history of trauma,” one other physician and OB-GYN, Mishka Terplan, testified “structural barriers” prevented Rousseau from getting an abortion, saying it was “unfortunately common.” Terplan added: “Her life and her pregnancy loss should evoke care and compassion not criminalization.”
And Rousseau’s first public defender testified he was struggling underneath a “crushing caseload” whereas he was representing her, in accordance with court docket paperwork. He “fell on his sword,” Judge McGee wrote, saying he admitted in testimony “every fault, every missed defense, every missed strategy.”
McGee in the end determined to vacate Rousseau’s conviction on the premise of ineffective help of counsel, whereas additionally citing Rousseau’s lack of understanding of the gestational age of the fetus.
“Patience has been portrayed as an antichrist, but this Judge thinks she is, instead, just a mother caught hopelessly in the web of poverty with a lack of any support system,” he wrote in his resolution.
McGee famous prosecutors needed to present Rousseau knowingly supposed to terminate the being pregnant after the twenty fourth week for a manslaughter cost, but they have been unable to show she knew she had “crossed the line.”
The choose put aside Rousseau’s earlier responsible plea, noting she might have been “coerced” to enter it.
Rousseau instructed NCS she felt she needed to plead responsible “to something that I knew I wasn’t guilty of … It still gets hung over my head, even though I’m exonerated.”
For roughly three years, Rousseau nonetheless waited in painful uncertainty, questioning whether or not she can be prosecuted once more and stand trial, Fitzsimmons stated, till Judge Michael Montero dismissed the case with prejudice over the district legal professional’s objections on April 7, 2025.
The Humboldt County District Attorney declined to remark when contacted by NCS.
Abel’s stays have been dropped at deputy’s dwelling
Deputy Mitcham was a acquainted face to Rousseau when officers confirmed up at her doorstep to serve a search warrant as a result of a girl who typically babysat her kids was a good friend of Mitcham’s, in accordance with Fitzsimmons.
In the police report, Mitcham wrote that the girl despatched her a screenshot of Rousseau’s Facebook post, which prompted her to examine medical data with out discovering something “indicating a pregnancy nor any OB/GYN visits.”
At the 2021 listening to, Mitcham testified she was “sad for Patience” as a result of she felt the mom “didn’t have many options. She didn’t have a lot of help.” Mitcham defined she had a 1-year-old baby at dwelling and the case “really hit me hard,” including: “It still hurts me. Haunts me.”
After she was launched from prison, Rousseau repeatedly requested the place Abel’s stays have been being held, and Fitzsimmons instructed her they have been nonetheless in custody and they might retrieve them as soon as the case was dismissed, the legal professional stated.
But it wasn’t till a Washington Post reporter, Caroline Kitchener, went to Mitcham’s dwelling in 2023 to interview her for a story about Rousseau’s case that the mom and her lawyer discovered what occurred to the stays, Fitzsimmons stated.
Mitcham instructed the reporter she claimed the stays of Abel from a Nevada funeral dwelling and recounted how she instructed the funeral director: “I’m taking him. That’s my baby,” in accordance with the Washington Post report.
The ashes of Abel have been then positioned on a shelf in Mitcham’s Texas dwelling in a wood field with a blue coronary heart, the report stated.
Mitcham declined to touch upon the story when contacted by NCS.
Both Fitzsimmons and Rousseau have been disturbed and overwhelmed to study what occurred to the stays, Fitzsimmons stated. Now, Rousseau’s attorneys are exploring “all possible remedies to secure the return of the remains,” they stated.
Rousseau says she nonetheless hasn’t been capable of grieve Abel’s loss, saying: “How can you grieve something that’s not there?”
There was one particular person ready exterior the prison when Rousseau was launched: Fitzsimmons. It was the primary time they met in particular person. They went to eat surf n’ turf collectively for dinner and drove to Target as a result of Rousseau didn’t have any garments, Fitzsimmons stated.
Fitzsimmons then drove them again to her home, the place Rousseau stayed the evening, she stated. That subsequent morning, Rousseau instructed her lawyer about how she couldn’t sleep as a result of it was so silent and she had been so accustomed to the fixed cacophony of sound in prison, Fitzsimmons stated.
From there, they flew collectively to Reno – Rousseau’s first time flying on a aircraft – the place the mom rented a U-Haul and drove to Winnemucca to choose up her kids, some furnishings and “started her new life,” Fitzsimmons stated.
“It was great because I got to go home to my kids, but at the same time, I didn’t have a home to go home to, so it was scary. I lost everything because I went to prison,” Rousseau stated.
It wasn’t till this March that Rousseau and her kids lastly obtained steady housing and a automobile after receiving cash from the settlement, she stated. While it’s probably the most cash she’s ever had, Rousseau says she needs she may have gotten a greater settlement.
Since her launch, the mom has given beginning to a different boy and has a steady job at a fuel station in Sturgis, South Dakota, the place she helps with upkeeping drag strips for races.
And when she’s not working, she spends time outside with her kids – tenting, fishing, gardening and going to Orman Dam Lake. They are constructing a large backyard collectively in the yard, and her boys are rising strawberries and watermelons.
“I’ve got seven trees, I have one of the most rare trees: a yellow maple tree in my yard,” she stated.
Her face lights up when she talks about watching her kids develop up in addition to their shared ardour for animals, together with their pets: a turtle, leopard gecko, fish and 5 canines.
Part of her weekly routine for the previous 5 years has been speaking to Fitzsimmons on the cellphone. She will get emotional talking about her, saying her lawyer was the one one that believed in her when “no one else did and that meant the world.”
Rousseau is nonetheless attempting to determine find out how to clarify to her three boys – ages three, 9 and 11 – what she went by way of, but she is going to attend till they’re sufficiently old to totally perceive, she stated. “I want my boys to look at women like we are as equal as them,” she stated.
“I came home, I never gave up, and I always fought for them and fought for them to stay together this whole time and that’s always been my goal,” she stated.
Rousseau hopes telling her story will make it recognized that girls in her place want extra assist. “No matter what, don’t give up,” she stated by way of tears. “I was ready to give up because I didn’t think I was ever getting out. Nobody should feel that way.”
“We need people that understand us, that understand that we’re not perfect, that we have our struggles, and sometimes we need people that can understand that enough to not just push us away, but to bring us in closer and try for us for once,” Rousseau stated.
“If everyone gives up on us women, there’s nothing left in this world that is worth living for, because we make the world what it is,” she added. “We create the new life; we teach the new life.”