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For years Safe Haven Baby Boxes has furnished the media with their self-reported stats for the number of trad (walk-in/face-to-face) safe haven hand-offs it claims to have facilitated. To the best of my memory, however, it has never publicized a specific hand-off case until now-that made the news. In fact, I can’t remember the last time an Indiana walk-in got press coverage.
On September 19, 2025, WPTA-TV rehashed a SHBB Inc horn-tooting press release regarding a Fort Wayne trad walk-in: Safe Haven Baby Boxes facilitates face-to-face infant surrender in Fort Wayne.
The surrender happened last month at DuPont Hospital after a mother reached out to the organization’s 24/7 National Emergency Hotline (1-866-99BABY1).
The organization says its team was able to provide the mother with emotional support as well as education and guidance on Indiana’s Safe Haven law, while coordinating with her and the hospital for the surrender.
So what’s going on? This….
(1)Brookside Park Discard, Indianapolis. Indiana. After claiming for years that no newborn deaths through neonaticide have been reported in Ground Zero Indiana, on September 1, the remains of a “newborn” were discovered at Brookside Park in Indianapolis. Police said there were no visible signs of trauma or external injury, and news reports suggested that the remains were those of a fetus or stillborn. According to an October 9 news story, the cause of death has not been determined, and the investigation is “very active.” On October 25, a public funeral was held by SHBB Inc associate Linda Znachko and her ministry, He Knows Your Name .
SHHBBN certainly does not believe that newbor discard or the public disposal of fetal remains and stillborns is acceptable, With the growing scrutiny and policing of women’s bodies and pregnancy by state, church, and busybodies, which can result in criminal charges and jail for women, however, it is not surprising that discard and disposal happens. We have yet to see any criticism by Mrs Kelsey about the pregnancy police from whom she obtains major funding and movement support, and the accompanying intimidating political climate that can create an increase in discards and perceived pregnancies. She, routinely claims that her movement has no connection to abortion, but believes that a zygote is a baby. Long before she found her baby box niche, Mrs Kelsey was a vocal forced birth advocate. She first heard of baby boxes when she was on an anti-abortion speaking tour in South Africa with now SHBB Inc hotline coordinator and top-tier anti-abortion activist Pam Stenzel,
2) Dead newborn, Louisville Kentucky. Laken Snelling , a student at the University of Kentucky, was charged on August 31, with abuse of a corpse after her roommates found the remains of a newborn in her closet. She does not deny giving birth, and was released on a $100,000 bond. A member of the UK STUNT team, Snelling is privileged–a WASPy blue-eyed blond–making her tabloid fodder.. The ultimate” nice girl ” is going down down down. An example–a moral lesson. Of course, if she were a Black woman or a woman of color or poor or mentally ill, she’d be pilloried and posted on other grounds.
A lot of weird stories are circulating about Snelling–everything from being a high school bully to making a video of herself in labor (!) To date, Snelling has not been charged with murder or manslaughter, and like the Brookside Park case, the cause of death is still under investigation. You’d never know it, though, from her trial by media. Local, national and even overseas news outlets reported only a couple days after Snellings’ arrest, that the cause of death was “inconclusive” (wink -wink we-know-she ‘s-a-baby-killer-bring out-the-noose) when in fact, only a routine preliminary autopsy had been performed, and a final determination, after a battalion of tests, was weeks or even months away.
Ronnie Bowling, Commonwealth Attorney for Kentucky’s 34th Circuit Court complained (not affiliated with the Sneling case) about how sensational and half-assed reporting and accompanying theories on social media impact the Snelling case and criminal cases in general:
The first human reaction is that people are mad and angry and they want someone to blame,…so much opinion-forming gets had before anyone hears the first real, legitimate fact, and that’s not fair to the defendants, just as much as it’s not fair to our victims
Journalist Emily Topping, bucking the tide, published an important piece on the Snelling case in the September 11, 2025 issue of Current Affairs: What the Kentucky Cheerleader “Dead Baby ” Case Actually Reveals About America . This is an article that Mrs Kelsey and her monster -mother- obsessed army should read, but won’t. Topping takes on the media for refusing to take broader issues and context and the political situation of US women today into the narrative. This is in line with my own argument that the overwhelmingly incurious media panders to Mrs Kelsey and her extremist movement. It’s easier to regurgitate than investigate. Topping wrote
The media coverage of this case is setting an extremely dangerous precedent. When journalists refuse to think critically about police reports—or can’t be bothered to examine the broader context of criminal charges—they allow an authoritarian punishment system to control the narrative. How many times do we have to learn this lesson? It’s common knowledge that cops have very little understanding of the female body; they have even less empathy for it. We know our legal system is actively hostile to women. So why are national publications blindly regurgitating the language of police? And in the case of Laken Snelling, and god knows how many other women, why is “concealing the birth of an infant” even a crime?…
Equally damning–and true: Topping laid out the subtext that lawmakers, cops, the uninformed media, and SHBB Inc pimp to the public. it’s easier to create band-aid, feel-good simplistic fixes rather than to work hard to find genuine reasons and solutions for discard and infanticide when the buck-passing misogynic system blows up:
The most infuriating part is this: Even people who aren’t accusing Snelling of murder can’t seem to fathom why a woman wouldn’t call the police after having a miscarriage. The fact that she didn’t call anyone, they imply, is an indication of guilt in and of itself. Police are there to help, after all! Surely no one would accuse you of a crime after undergoing something so awful and traumatic.
Nothing Changes! More Boxes!!!
The Brookside and Snelilng cases have brought howls of despair from SHBB Inc and their fans. “We need more boxes! But…
- The State of Kentucky has over 50 baby abandonment boxes, and Laken Snelling was 10 minutes away from one. We noticed that immediately, but apparently no boxers did at first, or at least didn’t acknowledge it to any extent. Now it is a big deal with them. Perhaps college dorms and sorority houses should install baby boxes at their back doors to help reckless “coeds” out of a jam.
- Indiana has about 150 abandonment boxes, including quite a few in Indy metro. Just for fun, I checked if any boxes were located near Brookside Park. According to MapQuest it appears that an abandonment box was 3 miles (11 minutes driving) at the Wayne Township Fire Station #8 on W Morris Avenue., and others were only a bit farther away. SHBB Inc hasn’t said a word about this outside of the general “she could have used a box.”
The idea that Safe Haven Baby Boxes stem newborn discard is absurd.
SHBB Inc associate Linda Znachko claims repeatedly that the Indiana infant mortality rate is plummeting, due to boxes, while in reality it has stayed around same since boxes became a thing. * According to the very detailed Indiana Infant Mortality Report,and Birth Outcomes Report 2023 (published, March 26, 2025) the 4 major factors that contribute to infant mortality (1 year of age and under) are: obesity, unsafe sleep practices, smoking, and limited prenatal care, A whopping 28.7% of births occurred to women who had no prenatal care in the first 3 months. The March of Dimes has issued a shocking report on the substandard care newborns and mothers endure in Indiana.
Baby abandonment boxes have nothing to do with decreasing three of these behaviors. . Mrs Kelsey has said repeatedly that nearly all mothers of boxed babies give birth unattended and alone. (How she knows this is never asked. The importance of prenatal care, however, is all but ignored in company propaganda. Its 12-minute-long “PSA”, targeted at teens, shows how to hide pregnancy and childbirth so you can “save” your baby (from yourself?) as well as your pristine rep, with a firehouse baby box.
In Indiana, between 2019-2022 .02022 .03% infants between birth and 1 year of age reportedly died of assault and injuries. The reported number for 2023 was 0.2 % with the caveat “rates based on less than 20 are considered unstable and should be interpreted with caution.
The vast majority of newborn deaths were due to perinatal risks (71.1 %)and congenital abnormalities. (21.1%) Assaults and injuries came in at 0.6.%
Final reference: Alana Semuels pointed out in her recent Time article that the use of baby boxes in Germany did nothing to decrease the number of newborns abandoned.
Conclusion
Mrs Kelseiy has held a personal gripe grudge against trad safe haven advocates and organizations for years. I don’t know the details, but the National Safe Haven Alliance rejected her application for membership several years ago based on her box scheme. Moreover, member and non-member organizations in several states, have fought legislation to legalize boxes, which Mrs. Kelsey complains about in social media and even in legislative hearings.
The truth is: Nobody wants her.
Occasionally, Mrs Kelsey will spew out a nice word about trads and their work, usually under the rubric “we are both on the same page–why can’t we all get along. “But hey, “mothers demand anonymity,” and for some reason she believes that walk-ins don’t get it and are blabbed about all over town. That is, trads undercut her extremist agenda and its perks and, importantly, her public status and pocketbook.
By publicizing the Fort Wayne walk-in, SHBB Inc seems to be on the one hand a lame attempt to deflect from what the corporation and/or it’s public perceives as its own failures while on the other hand advertising its “services” and the necessity for more boxes.
From the POV of SHHH Inc and Mrs Kelsey, if he Snelling and especially the Brookside Park case turns out to be a genuine neonaticide, SHBB Inc , their rep and ego are tarnished. They have already rebooted their Indiana scoreboard without a final autopsy and cause of death report–and no mother has been located. But they also cry poor and plow up more $$$ “to save the babies.”
But, if one or both cases turn out to be a miscarriage/stillbirth, it doesn’t matter since the discovery has churned Monica’s Mighty Wurlitzer.
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*I wrote about the absurdity of Znachko’s claim in November 2023 here.
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NOTE: I am once behind and have 7 other blogs to finish –or not.
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