Judge instructs investigators to enter sect member’s home

ATTLEBORO, Mass. – A juvenile court judge ordered state investigators to go into a religious sect member’s home to determine whether the woman recently has given birth, prosecutors said Friday.

Officials from the Department of Social Services were turned away from Rebecca Corneau’s Attleboro home Thursday when they tried to see whether she had recently given birth.

In 1999, Corneau and family members secretly buried her stillborn child in Maine.

Corneau, 33, recently had appeared pregnant and Bristol District Attorney Paul Walsh had asked at a hearing earlier this week that Corneau be confined to protect the baby.

But Corneau no longer appeared to be pregnant at the hearing, so Walsh dropped the request and instead filed a complaint with the DSS.

When DSS workers arrived at Corneau’s house on Thursday, they were not allowed in.

On Friday, Juvenile Court Judge Kenneth P. Nasif issued an order allowing DSS investigators to enter Corneau’s home and the home of another suspected sect member who lives in Rehoboth, said Walsh spokesman Ed Sirois.

“There’s a number of questions we’re trying to answer,” Sirois said. “We want to know if she’s given birth, and if so, where is the baby.”

DSS officials did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press on Friday.

Corneau was confined for six weeks when she was pregnant in 2000 because of concerns about the health of her baby. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl in October 2000, who was immediately placed with a foster family.

Corneau already has had five children, including her stillborn son, Jeremiah, who was secretly buried in 1999 in Maine’s Baxter State Park with his 1-year-old cousin, Samuel Robidoux. Prosecutors allege that Samuel starved to death after his aunt said she had a vision from God instructing his parents to feed the baby nothing but breast milk and almond milk.

His parents, sect leader Jacques Robidoux and his wife, Karen, face murder charges in a trial expected to start in March.