FL - Lakeland Woman Leads Police To Fetus She Claims To Have Buried

Tracy McHugh, 36, took her 18-year-old daughter, Heather McHugh, for medical visits and laboratory evaluations 384 times over a five-year period, including seven hospitalizations that lasted 15 days or more, according to Lakeland police.

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William Newberry was McHugh's neighbor. He describes her as a protective but loving mother. At the time, McHugh had one 10-year-old daughter. That daughter is the one who led police to the baby's remains...

William Newberry, McHugh's Former Neighbor:
“My two daughters asked once at that time if she was pregnant she said no she had a tumor couple days later the tumor was gone and she was out walking around.”

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Forensic analysts examined the baby's remains and could not determine how she died so McHugh was not charged with her death.

In May, McHugh accepted a plea deal on the child abuse charges. She gave up her parental rights, agreed to counseling, and was released on 10 years' probation....

Heather has a blood disease known as von Willebrand. At times, her blood does not clot properly. On rare occasions (once in the past two years), she needs blood transfusions. Doctors say she has a mild form of the disease, but her mother turned it into a full-time ailment that consumed her life day in, day out...
The Department of Homeland Security wants to deport McHugh back to the United Kingdom since she has been convicted of child abuse, an aggravated felony.

Rose recently heard McHugh may have gotten pregnant during the two months she was out of jail this summer. Sure enough, in recent jail conversations, McHugh told her husband she was getting an ultrasound. Privacy laws prevent the jail from releasing such information, Rose said.

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BARTOW - Tracy McHugh sobbed and wiped at her face with tissues Friday afternoon as she agreed to permanently give up custody of her 1/2-year-old daughter and 1 1/2-year-old son, and to make no attempt to contact her adult daughter Heather.

McHugh, 37, who had been facing up to 60 years in prison for subjecting her children to hundreds of needless medical treatments, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated child abuse in front of 10th Judicial Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance.

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Illegal immigrant McHugh, 38, who is three months pregnant, is now likely to be thrown out of the US and be back in Scotland within weeks...


[Detective Rose said] " What is very disturbing is that she may be walking free in the streets in your country soon.

"This woman is a significant threat to all children and will be free to live in the UK soon. She is dangerous."...

She was charged after Heather told how her mum repeatedly stabbed her with needles and forced her to make herself throw up after meals...

In August, she was released but she was re-arrested this month for violating her probation by not attending mental health counselling....

She is expected to arrive in Scotland within weeks with her husband, Edward McHugh, who is standing by her.

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DETECTIVES believe a Scots mother who buried her newborn child in a garden will strike again when she is deported to Britain...
As part of her sentencing deal, McHugh has no conditions attached to her release, which means she will not be monitored when she returns to the UK.

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The kids no longer call her mom, but some part of Tracy McHugh will always be with them.

Like in Heather's slow speech and Elizabeth's stunted growth, memories of McHugh's misdeeds continue to plague the lives of McHugh's former friends and family, more than two years after her arrest on child abuse charges...

Investigators also discovered McHugh had six miscarriages and gave one baby up for adoption before having Elizabeth and Joseph, who is now 2. She had a habit of hiding the pregnancies in her baggy clothes and giving birth at home...

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