Five years after Jenifer Marie Tupper was accused of murdering her newborn son in a backyard cottage on Leghorn Street, Santa Clara County prosecutors have dropped the case. Deputy District Attorney Carolyn Malinsky said her office no longer believes it can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the baby's death was a homicide, and the 36-year-old Mountain View woman is now free after nearly four years in jail.
Court records show Malinsky agreed to dismiss the murder and child abuse charges last Wednesday, according to the Palo Alto Daily Post. Malinsky, who was named Santa Clara County's top felony trial attorney in February 2026 through the Napoleon J. Menard Award for her work on complex homicide cases, told the paper it became a tough case to prove once outside medical experts weighed in against the original findings.
What Happened at the Leghorn Street Cottage
Tupper gave birth to her baby on August 2, 2021, inside a backyard cottage on Leghorn Street owned by her boyfriend's family, according to the Palo Alto Daily Post. She told doctors at El Camino Hospital that the baby had been in a bag, and police say she had called a friend, who then called police. Officers later read a journal entry back to Tupper at the police station, one in which she had written, “If there is any way to do all of this without anyone finding out, I'd be extremely excited.”
Her journal also contained entries about resolving the pregnancy legally or illegally, which Malinsky said could be interpreted as writing about an abortion. Tupper told investigators she had been walking to the sink to get scissors to cut the umbilical cord and claimed she fell on her baby and struck him with her elbow. She used a jacket to cover the baby, who was born face down and was not breathing, and she reportedly refused to look at his face.
Coroner's Findings Versus Defense Experts
The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner found the baby suffered extensive trauma to his face and neck, along with a broken left arm and brain bleeding, findings that formed the basis of the original 2021 arrest and August 6, 2021 felony filing in Santa Clara County Superior Court. Mountain View Police arrested Tupper on August 4, 2021, two days after the birth, following an autopsy that initially determined the baby had been born alive and died from significant injuries, according to CBS News.
But Tupper's defense attorney hired a medical examiner, an obstetrician, and a perinatal pathologist, and all three disagreed with the official cause of death. The medical examiner retained by Tupper said the injuries could have resulted from a breached delivery, and separately said the cause of death was undetermined. That conflicting medical testimony, five years after the arrest, undercut the prosecution's ability to establish homicide beyond a reasonable doubt, per the Daily Post's account of the case's collapse.
Nearly Four Years Behind Bars
Tupper was held at the Elmwood Complex Women's Facility in Milpitas, Santa Clara County's primary female detention facility with capacity for up to 600 inmates across all security levels, according to the Shouse Law Group. She was released from Elmwood on April 14, 2025, to an addiction treatment center in San Jose, and court records show Judge Benjamin Williams later allowed her to remove her ankle monitor. With the charges now dropped, prosecutors have formally ended the case against her.
A Shifting Legal Landscape for Pregnancy Loss Cases
The dismissal comes against the backdrop of major changes to California law since Tupper's 2021 arrest. In September 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2223, which the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom says statutorily prohibits criminal or civil liability for people experiencing miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion, or perinatal death from causes occurring in utero. The law also removed the automatic requirement for coroners to investigate unattended pregnancy losses.
A 2023 appellate decision, People v. Carpenter, further clarified that AB 2223 immunizes mothers from prosecution over prenatal conduct or unassisted home deliveries, though it does not shield post-birth criminal acts or omissions, according to LA County Bar Association. That distinction, between what happens before birth and what happens after, sits at the center of unresolved questions in cases like Tupper's, where the timeline and cause of the baby's fatal injuries remained disputed by competing medical opinions.
Safe Surrender Remains an Option in Santa Clara County
Following Tupper's 2021 arrest, Mountain View Police publicly reminded residents that Mountain View Fire Station 1 at 251 Shoreline Boulevard operates as an official designated safe surrender site for newborns. Under California's Safely Surrendered Baby Law, a parent or legal custodian can anonymously surrender a newborn 72 hours old or younger at any hospital emergency room or designated fire station without facing prosecution for child abandonment, provided there is no evidence of abuse or neglect, according to FindLaw.
In Santa Clara County, unexpected infant deaths outside a hospital setting trigger a mandatory multi-agency investigation under the county's Child Abuse Protocol, involving homicide detectives, the Medical Examiner-Coroner, and District Attorney investigators, per CBS News. El Camino Health in Mountain View, where Tupper was evaluated after the delivery, completed a $149 million renovation of its Women's Hospital at the Orchard Pavilion this year, adding 19 labor-and-delivery rooms and a dedicated 24/7 obstetric emergency room, as Hoodline reported in a recent look at the hospital's expanded maternity services.
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