Funeral held for pre-born baby found in wastewater

Apr 14, 2005 / 22:00 pm

A funeral was held April 11 for a five-month-old fetus found at the county’s wastewater treatment plant last week, reported the Suburban Daily.

About 50 people attended the funeral for John Paul, named after the late Pope by Our Lady of Victories Pro-Life Group that organized the funeral.  Fr. Michael Krull, pastor at Our Lady of Victories Church, conducted the funeral.

Janice O’Brien, chairwoman of the pro-life group and wife of Sayreville’s mayor, decided to organize the funeral when she read the news about the pre-born baby April 6.

Robert Latham was on duty at the Middlesex County Utilities Authority when the fetus was discovered in a bar screen used to catch large objects within the waterway. He reported the finding to authorities.

He said medical examiners believed a woman must have had a “spontaneous miscarriage” and flushed the fetus down the toilet.

“It just seems like [the mother] panicked and didn’t know what to do,” O’Brien told the newspaper. “We want this mother to be at peace and know that he is taken care of.”

Latham said the funeral was a “wonderful” idea. He attended, along with his wife and their six children.

The baby was to be buried in a part of the Catholic cemetery dedicated to infant deaths, but Fr. Krull decided to bury the fetus at the entrance of the cemetery instead, below a statue of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, as a reminder “of the beauty and dignity of life.”