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California couple who killed newborn daughter and left her in corn dog box under freeway to spend life in prison

Investigators determined that both had planned to 'kill the baby from the beginning.'
UPDATED FEB 25, 2020
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

A California couple, Joshua Benson, 18, and Shawna Andritch, 23, who admitted to killing their newborn daughter and leaving her in a box under a freeway, has been sentenced to 25 and 15 years to life in prison respectively on Friday, November 1.

The infant, who authorities named 'Baby Jane Doe,' was discovered by a landscaper under the freeway under Cajalco Road in Corona, California, on July 27, 2018, and had been left inside a 38-count corn dog box, according to KTLA.

She was reportedly "still covered in afterbirth" and had been wrapped in a men's t-shirt, with a stuffed animal and a blanket also left inside the box. It was not revealed how she had died. 

The Corona Police Department reached out to the public for help as they investigated the infant's death, and eventually received information that helped them track down her parents, Benson and Andritch five months later.

Dozens of people in Riverside County paid their respects to Baby Jane during a funeral service in December 2018, just a week before her parents' arrest, that had been organized in part by police officers and firefighters at Sunnyslope Cemetery.

The Press-Enterprise reported that around 70 people gathered on what was a cloudy day with flowers, gifts, and prayers as a tiny marble casket was lowered into the ground and buried.

Investigators determined that both had planned to "kill the baby from the beginning." While Benson was 17 and still a juvenile at the time, a Riverside County Juvenile Court judge found him unfit for juvenile court and had his case transferred to adult court this past June.

In August, he had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, while Andritch pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

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