By Rich Pollack
Facing a maximum sentence of life in prison on murder charges, the woman who detectives say tossed her newborn daughter into the ocean in 2018 instead pleaded guilty to two lesser charges and was sentenced to 14 years behind bars.
Arya Singh, 30, who was originally charged with first-degree murder in the death of her child — named Baby June by sheriff’s detectives — pleaded guilty on Aug. 2 to aggravated manslaughter of a child and abuse of a dead human body.
As part of the sentence, Judge Howard Coates credited Singh with 231 days for time served in the Palm Beach County Jail, where she had been since her arrest late last year, and ordered that she serve 10 years of probation following her release.
Singh’s guilty plea came more than five years after the 2-day-old girl was found floating near the Boynton Inlet by an off-duty firefighter.
The intensive search for the infant’s mother ended in December when Palm Beach County sheriff’s detectives, using the latest DNA technology available, zeroed in on Singh.
Investigators believe that Baby June was born in a hotel room. They discovered that Singh had searched online for hotels in the Boynton Beach area eight times during a two-hour period the morning of May 30, 2018, the day the baby was born.
They also found that Singh had conducted numerous searches of news sites for about a month after Baby June’s body was discovered.
In August 2022, shortly after Singh was identified as a suspect, DNA found by undercover detectives on a discarded coffee cup confirmed that Singh was indeed the mother of Baby June.
Investigators did a subsequent DNA test and conducted several interviews to be certain of their findings before filing charges against Singh in December.
In court records, detectives said they believed the baby was born alive but was already dead when she was placed in the water. Although prosecutors accused Singh of killing the child by asphyxiation, they believe the homicide was not premeditated.
Investigators believe that Singh acted alone and that the child’s father was unaware of the baby’s birth.
As part of her sentence, Singh was ordered to pay just over $700 in court costs.
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