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Top inset: Samantha Sebella. Bottom inset: Steven Valle (Jasper County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Wheatfield, Indiana, home where cops found bone fragments of two children (WGN/YouTube).
Prosecutors in Indiana have dropped murder charges against a couple who allegedly killed two children and burned their bodies in their backyard firepit.
Steven Valle, 31, and Samantha Sebella, 25, were facing charges of murder, neglect of a dependent causing death, abuse of a corpse and failure to report a dead body. But prosecutors with the Jasper County Prosecutor’s Office filed a motion to dismiss. On Wednesday a judge dismissed the charges without prejudice, meaning prosecutors could refile the case at a later date. Jasper County Prosecutor Jacob Taulman told Law&Crime that prosecutors expect to do just that.
Taulman said part of the reason prosecutors dismissed the case is so anthropologists could continue to sift through the ashes, debris and other material cops uncovered from the firepit. He described the process as a “difficult and tedious task” because much of the material is so small. Prosecutors are also going through digital data from phones and other digital devices.
“We do intend to seek justice in this manner,” he said.
But Valle’s attorney said prosecutors should not bring back the charges because he has seen “no evidence that a crime even occurred.”
“It is our hope that this dismissal will put an end to this matter,” he told Chicago ABC affiliate WLS.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office said deputies began investigating Sept. 20 after one of the couple’s friends contacted the agency about Valle confiding in him, “I killed my two kids,” the affidavit obtained by Law&Crime said. When the friend inquired further, Valle allegedly said they had “smothered their first born but had drown the second born and burnt their bodies in the firepit at their house.”
Cops referred to the dead children as “undocumented,” meaning they were born at home and never received any documentation like a birth certificate, social security number and the like.
Detectives found Valle and Sebella at a hotel in Newton County. They denied any knowledge, but cops took their phones as evidence. Meanwhile, a third undocumented child was removed from their custody.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the Sheriff’s Office, Indiana State Police, Jasper County Coroner’s Office, along with two cadaver dogs, descended on the property in Wheatfield on Sept. 30 where Valle and Sebella used to live, probable cause affidavit said. The couple had reportedly been evicted from the property in July. The dogs alerted to three separate locations on the property where investigators uncovered bone fragments.
Cops took the fragments to a specialist in Indianapolis for testing to determine if they were from an infant or animal. The bones were determined to be human, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Data extraction on Oct. 1 of Sebella’s phone unveiled incriminating text messages between her and Valle. She allegedly texted him shortly after 11 a.m. Sept. 17: “GUESS WHAT BABY KILLER.” About an hour later, she texted him: “You killed my kids cause you are a f—-t you never loved me.”
The next day Valle allegedly responded: “Yeah I know the fire will be known for what you did.”
Sebella also reportedly texted: “YOU KILLED OUR BABIES I HAVE THERE DNA IN BODY FOREVER” and “They will know everything you took me to the doctor in 2017 to prove that I was pregnant THEY WILL KNOW.”
Police also allegedly found a “Baby Center” app on her phone that documented the progress of her pregnancy and uploaded key dates to her Google calendar.
When detectives confronted Valle with this evidence, he admitted Sebella gave birth to a boy in 2018 while he was on his way home, the affidavit said. But when he arrived, he claimed he found Sebella passed out with the child between her legs not breathing. He said the boy weighed about 10 pounds and was 18 inches long.
“Steven said he cleaned him up to make him look ‘pretty,’ wrapped him in a baby blanket, face exposed, and placed him in a box,” the affidavit said. “Steven said after three days, he knew the child wouldn’t be coming back to life so he wrapped him completely in the blanket and buried him in the backyard near a shed.”
Valle reportedly told investigators that “some time” after the boy’s death, Sebella became pregnant again. This time she gave birth to a “premature” girl in the bathtub while he was at work. According to the affidavit, he claimed the girl was dead when he got home. He said he buried her next to the boy.
The children were buried for about three to five years before he dug them up and burned them in the firepit, cops wrote. He allegedly sifted through the ashes and saw some bone fragments.
“Steven stated that he kept some of the ashes to make a necklace as a memento,” the affidavit said.