Monique Ellen Burton: Mum who hid baby found in freezer had concealed births before, lied about deadly illness

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

A mother who concealed a pregnancy by pretending she had bloating from a terminal illness gave birth while her partner was sleeping and hid the baby in a garbage bag behind a sofa.

Monique Ellen Burton had been in a de facto relationship with the father of her five children, Shaun Bradley Balaam, for more than a decade when she fell pregnant to another man in late 2021.

The 35-year-old’s District Court sentencing hearing on Thursday was told she falsely claimed she had been diagnosed with cirrhosis and had five years left to live.

When Mr Balaam became suspicious, she took a pregnancy test, which appeared to show a negative result.

Then in August 2022, she gave birth on the couch in the lounge room of their home in the Geraldton suburb of Spalding while her family slept.

She brought the baby boy into the bathroom before placing him in a plastic garbage bag and hiding him behind the same sofa, where Mr Balaam found her looking pale and vomiting when he awoke.

He took her to the local hospital and she was transferred to King Edward Memorial Hospital, where she was diagnosed as suffering post-partum pre-eclampsia and remained for five days.

But medical staff detected two signs she had recently given birth, including a telltale hormone, and repeatedly asked her if she had done so, which she repeatedly denied.

Meanwhile, a friend, in good faith, set up a GoFundMe page seeking funds to pay for her so-called terminal liver cancer costs.

Burton’s claims included that she had been taken off the transplant list, with the fundraiser stating she wanted “to make memories with her kids while she had time to do so”. It garnered more than $3000.

On her fifth day in hospital, as her health improved, she was again confronted by a social worker about her pregnancy and finally confessed to Balaam after he did the same over the phone, when the woman had stepped out of the room.

He told her she “needed to get her sh.. together and tell the hospital”, that he’d hid the bag in a chest freezer on the back verandah, then hung up.

When the social worker returned, Burton was crying and made admissions, claiming the boy was stillborn.

Prosecutor Jenna Winter said Balaam had found the bag behind the sofa while looking for a mobile phone and did not look inside, suspecting it contained an infant because of Burton’s “history of concealed pregnancies”.

When police arrived at their home, Balaam said: “I haven’t seen it. I didn’t want to see it . . . It could have been a baby. I didn’t want to believe it was”.

“I didn’t know what to do. I just absolutely freaked out,” he said.

The bag was hidden under dog food, which was among human food.

Ms Winter said the baby was found to be anatomically normal and uninjured, but his cause of death could not be determined, nor whether the boy took a first breath.

Methamphetamine was detected in his urine, she added.

Burton claimed she couldn’t remember when she realised she was pregnant and “maybe it all clicked” in the final trimester.

“She could not explain why she kept everything secret from everyone,” Ms Winter said.

Burton denied it was due to the child having a different father.

Defence counsel Anthony Elliot said his client had “foolishly” concealed pregnancies and the “sticking her head in the sand approach” was one she took to deal with the anxieties of expecting.

Judge Darren Renton said a “state of denial seemed to be her default” and she had dissociated.

Ms Winter said Burton had previously developed intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy, which stopped once the child was born, but she pretended she still had it afterwards because “she could go to the doctor and escape from the kids”.

Burton pleaded guilty to interfering with a corpse and multiple counts of fraud over the fundraiser.

Judge Renton will hand down sentence on Friday.

Balaam faced Geraldton Magistrates Court last year and was sentenced to a 12-month community-based order.

Lifeline: 13 11 14