Prosecutors yesterday promised not to charge a jailed Attleboro cult couple with illegally disposing of their child's body after an alleged miscarriage if they tell officials where the infant is buried.
Bristol Attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr. sent a letter to Rebecca and David Corneau assuring them that their statements would not be used against them for the misdemeanor but did not rule out other charges being brought against them or others in their sect. ``We want to know where the remains are,'' said First Assistant District Attorney Gerry FitzGerald. ``The (Department of Social Services), the juvenile court and, of course, the DA want to know. You're supposed to report this stuff.''
The couple, who belong to a sect called The Body, were jailed Tuesday for contempt after refusing to tell a juvenile court judge and DSS officials what happened to the baby Rebecca Corneau was carrying.
After three appeals failed, including one to the Supreme Judicial Court, their attorney told Attleboro Juvenile Court Judge Kenneth Nasif that Rebecca Corneau had a miscarriage in November.
Nasif berated attorney J.W. Carney for coming up with the story so late and ordered the couple jailed, saying he did not believe there was a miscarriage. Carney did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.
Sources told the Herald Rebecca Corneau claimed to have stopped feeling movement by her baby in November and delivered the dead infant in a Rehoboth farmhouse owned by another cult member.
In October 2000, under a grant of immunity, the Corneaus led investigators to a gravesite in a remote Maine state park where their stillborn son, Jeremiah, and his cousin, who prosecutors charge was starved to death, were buried.