The Latest: Police: Comatose woman hospitalized after birth
The Latest on a woman in a vegetative state at a Phoenix care facility who recently gave birth (all times local):
2:55 p.m.
Phoenix police say a woman in a vegetative state who gave birth at a long-term care facility is hospitalized along with her baby.
Police spokesman Tommy Thompson said at a news conference Wednesday that investigators are gathering DNA from male workers at the facility and that a suspect has yet to be identified in the sexual assault.
He says the incapacitated woman wasn’t able to give consent.
Thompson says police were called Dec. 29 about a newborn in distress at a Hacienda HealthCare facility. He says the woman and child are recovering but didn’t release their conditions.
An attorney for the woman’s family says the baby boy will be well cared for.
Hacienda HealthCare says it’s cooperating with police and has called the case “deeply disturbing.”
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1 a.m.
Phoenix police are pursuing DNA samples from every male employee at a private care facility where a patient in a vegetative state recently gave birth.
A spokesman for Hacienda HealthCare says investigators served a search warrant Tuesday to obtain DNA from all male staffers.
Officials say they are committed to cooperating with the police to “uncover the facts in this deeply disturbing, but unprecedented situation.”
A woman living at a Hacienda HealthCare facility in central Phoenix reportedly delivered a baby last month.
San Carlos Apache Tribe officials say the 29-year-old woman is a tribal member and has been in a vegetative state for more than a decade.
