remains of infants stored in arizona storage facility

Mixed Content AP/WBRE-TV ........(warning this is a heart jerking story)

Bradford Co. PA. A woman from Bradford County who had rented a storage unit in Safford, Arizona where the remains of three infants were stored told Graham County investigators that the babies were born full-term but died shortly after their births, the sheriff said. Diane O'Dell, now living in Potterville, Bradford County near Rome, PA, told investigators she gave birth to four babies that died in New York state between the late 1960s and 1984, including the three found last week in the boxes abandoned in a storage shed in Safford, Ariz., said Graham County Sheriff Frank Hughes. "What she told our investigators was that all the babies were born full-term and then died within hours," Hughes said. No charges have been filed in Arizona and Graham County officials have turned information from their investigation over to New York authorities, Hughes said. Graham County Attorney Kenneth Angle said investigators met with New York authorities Monday. "I am not aware of anything we'll be continuing beyond providing New York authorities as much information as possible," Angle said. Angle said he was unsure where she had been living in New York when she gave birth. A resident in Safford, about 146 miles southeast of Phoenix, discovered the first infant body in a box on May 12 while going through the contents of the shed, which he had bought at an auction. He called authorities, who discovered the remains of two more babies in another box. Authorities interviewed O'Dell during the weekend after identifying her through records at Customer Storage Rentals. Angle said O'Dell, told investigators she had given birth to the first baby in the late 1960s or early 1970s, when she was about 16. After the baby died, he said, O'Dell put the infant in a plastic bag and then a suitcase. In 1989, New York authorities discovered the infant's remains and investigated the death, but no charges were filed, Angle said. Between 1981 and 1984, O'Dell gave birth in New York to the three babies found in Safford, Angle said. O'Dell told investigators those babies also died shortly after their births. According to the sheriff's office, O'Dell carried the babies' remains with her from New York through several states before storing them in the Safford shed. O'Dell lived in Safford for about seven months between 1991 and 1992. She also told investigators that she thought the owner of the storage company had thrown out the contents of the shed in 1994 _ the same year she last paid rent on the unit, Hughes said. He said O'Dell currently has eight living children. Investigators also questioned her partner, Robert Sauerstein. Hughes called the couple's relationship a "common law arrangement," and said he was unsure how long they had been together and whether Sauerstein fathered any of O'Dell's children. Pennsylvania State Police declined to comment on the case. A former neighbor of Sauerstein in Montrose, Pa., said he spoke to Sauerstein often when Sauerstein lived across the street with a woman named Diane and several children in 2001. "Him, I talked to more than her," said Jeffrey Strohl, 40. "We never talked about their kids." "The two of them were very different ... He seemed a little more outgoing." Sauerstein and the family did not stay in the home across the street very long. "Before I knew it, they had moved," Strohl said. Mixed Content AP/WBRE-TV

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