Baby girl found dead in trash bag laid to rest in Lexington County
LEXINGTON COUNTY, SC (WIS) - Less than a month after a baby girl was found dead in a trash bag and her mother was charged in her death, she's receiving a proper burial.
Brennan Geller, 21, is charged with homicide by child abuse in the death of the infant, named Kimberly Faith Taylor by her father. Investigators said Geller delivered the infant inside her car on August 3 and placed her in a trash bag on the floor of the vehicle. The next day, investigators said Geller was taken to the hospital for blood loss and she failed to tell the medical staff of the infant. She was later located by deputies deceased.
On Saturday, family, and friends of Edwin Taylor, Kimberly's father, laid her to rest.
"I want everyone to remember Kimberly," Taylor said. "She would have been a loving little baby girl but nobody got a chance to meet her it was taken away from all of us but just know she's up in heaven, in God's hands, the best hands possible just looking over all of us."
MORE: A SC woman is charged with putting her newborn in a trash bag. An SC law is designed to prevent that.
Taylor and Geller had been dating for about a year and a half and he had no idea she was pregnant.
"I do feel robbed of not being able to be there when it happened, never knowing it was going to happen," he said. "I was stripped of all my rights as a father."
Just a few weeks before Geller gave birth, she went to the beach with Taylor's family. They admit she began wearing baggy clothing, but said she was not showing a full term pregnancy.
"There's really no words for it, it was uncalled for, we had asked many times and she denied it," Kathy Taylor, Edwin's mother, said. "I opened my home to her, she went to family functions with us, holidays with us, loved on my other grandchildren and didn't even give him an option or a say of what we wanted to do and it's a void we will have for the rest of our lives."
The family said they believe Geller planned to get rid of the baby but are struggling to understand why.
"She's in a better place than we are because she doesn't have to deal with all the meanness that's in this world," she said. "It's going to hurt, there isn't going to be a day that goes by that none of us don't think about her."
The family invited WIS to attend the private graveside burial and said they chose to speak out to eliminate public speculation.
"I want the public to know there's an entire family that loves that baby and would have done anything to take care of that baby and only if we'd been given the opportunity to know she was coming it would have ended so differently," Katie Taylor-Fonte, Edwin's sister said. "I want people to know these entire nine months were robbed from him, he didn't get to support her, he didn't get to share in that excitement, he didn't get to give input, he found out when the public found out."
Geller is currently out of jail on a $50,000 surety bond. The family said it is frustrated and said bond was set too low.
"In a lot of ways I feel like he's being punished more than she's been punished and I think that sends a message of how much Kimberly's life was valued versus the freedom of that individual," Taylor-Fonte said.
Dozens of family members and friends attended the graveside burial in West Columbia. While mourning the passing of Kimberly, they also said they are grieving the experiences Edwin won't get to share with his daughter.
"Whether she wanted to parent or not parent, whatever her choice would have been we would have supported her through that and make the situation not end like that," Taylor-Fonte said. "I don't have a doubt that was never her intention. All the support in the world wasn't going to change this, I think she knew what she was going to do and she worked to achieve that goal."
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