HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WTVR) – The Henrico mother accused of putting her newborn in a clothes dryer appeared in Henrico Juvenile Court Friday. Angela Janecka was in court for only a few minutes as her case was continued to February 11.
Janecka, who was wearing jail attire during the hearing, was led away in handcuffs.
In September, a Henrico judge denied Janecka bond after county lawyers argued that the only way Janecka could have done something so shocking was because she “was mentally unstable, or cold, calculating and decisive in terminating the life of a child.”
In a previous court hearing, it was revealed Janecka and her husband traveled to Northern Virginia earlier in her pregnancy to seek an abortion. The doctor denied the couple because Janecka was too far along in her pregnancy for the procedure.
Janecka later convinced her husband the unborn child had died in-utero, Henrico County Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Nancy Oglesby said in court. Oglesby added when Janecka delivered the child alive on August 25, she put the baby in a plastic bag, tied the bag and placed it in the dryer of her Henrico town home.
Janecka then called her husband and said she had delivered a still-born child. She said a doctor took the baby’s body away and told her husband not to come home from work because she had the situation under control, Ogelsby said.
Janecka’s husband did come home and discovered the child, alive, 15 to 30 minutes following the birth.
The child, a girl, who was in “good” condition after she was discovered, was handed over to the care of Child Protective Services.
Janecka is charged with attempted murder and felony child neglect.
