Parents’ damning texts about their children lead officials to grisly fire pit discovery: Court docs
A mother and father from Indiana have been charged with murdering two of their children.
Steven Valle, 31, and Samantha Sebella, 25 — both of Wheatfield — were arrested last week and charged with murder, neglect of a dependent causing death, abuse of a corpse, and failure to report a dead body.
‘YOU KILLED OUR BABIES, I HAVE THEIR DNA IN MY BODY FOREVER.’
On Sept. 20, deputies with the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office began investigating the pair after a tipster informed authorities about a horrifying confession. The informant allegedly told police that Valle told friends he killed two of his children.
Detectives located Valle at a hotel in Newton County. He denied the allegations. However, police obtained a search warrant and seized the couple’s cell phones, which allegedly contained damning evidence. Turns out there were text messages between the pair on the phones that appeared to indicate Valle murdered the two children, according to court documents.
“You killed my kids cause you are a fa****, you never loved me,” one message read, WXIN-TV reported.
“YOU KILLED OUR BABIES, I HAVE THEIR DNA IN MY BODY FOREVER,” another message between Sebella and Valle reportedly read.
According to WXIN, the police report “insinuated that Valle had smothered his first-born child and drowned his second-born.”
A judge determined there was enough evidence to arrest Valle and Sebella on Friday, Law & Crime said. The couple was taken to the Jasper County Detention Center, where they remain without bond.
Both suspects allegedly denied ever having more than one child, telling investigators their child was born in their home without documentation. The Indiana Department of Child Services removed this child from the couple’s custody.
Indeed, the Jasper County Health Department informed investigators there wasn’t any record of Sebella ever having given birth.
The pair reportedly also told investigators Sebella never had a miscarriage or a stillbirth.
But during a second police interview, Sebella allegedly admitted that she had given birth to a boy in 2018.
Valle claimed to police that he found Sebella passed out with an infant lying between her legs, according to court documents
Valle reportedly claimed the baby was not awake or breathing, so he cleaned up the infant, placed him in a blanket, and put him in a box. Valle claimed to have buried the child in the backyard three days after the birth because he “knew the child wouldn’t be coming back to life.”
According to court documents, Valle claimed to investigators Sebella got pregnant a second time, but the baby was prematurely born in a bathtub while he was at work. Valle allegedly buried the second baby in the backyard near the first deceased infant.
Police say Valle informed them that he dug up the corpses of his children three to five years after their deaths and burned them in a fire pit. He saved some of the ashes to make a necklace as a memento, according to court docs.
On Sept. 30, the sheriff’s office, Indiana State Police, Jasper County Coroner’s Office along with two cadaver dogs went to the Wheatfield property where Valle and Sebella had previously lived. The couple reportedly was evicted from the property earlier this year.
“With the cooperation of the landowner and the current residents, the search began, and the cadaver dogs alerted to three separate locations on the property. A preliminary search at these locations uncovered partial bone fragments,” deputies wrote, according to Law & Crime.
The outlet added that authorities took the bone fragments to a specialist in Indianapolis for testing to determine whether they were from an infant or animal, and the sheriff’s office said the fragments were human.
Deputies said the couple did not inform authorities about the births, deaths, burials, or burnings of their children.
You can view a video report here about the case.
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