Teen Accused Of Dropping Newborn From Window Blames Strict Upbringing

By Kate Shepherd in News on Nov 20, 2015 8:00PM

Lawyers for the Uptown teen accused of dropping her newborn baby out of her bedroom window are arguing that her strict family and religious upbringing should be to blame, and friends of her are also saying the the legal system should take her strict Muslim upbringing into consideration.

Mubashra Uddin, 19 was forbidden to speak to boys and when her parents found out about her boyfriend, they pulled her out of Uplift Community High School and home-schooled her, according to the NBC.

"Sometimes she felt under pressure to be this perfect daughter...even pressure to be this perfect Muslim woman that prayed, fasted, was humble and also didn't make mistakes," a longtime friend identified as "Nina O.," wrote to the judge in support of Uddin.

When the DeVry University student found out she was pregnant in February, she kept it a secret from her parents, only telling her boyfriend and one friend. She gave birth a full-term baby girl in the room she shared with her 11-year-old sister in her family's small Uptown apartment on Nov. 11.

When she heard her mother approaching her room, she dropped her newborn daughter out of the eighth-story window, according to prosecutors. The infant suffered a fractured spine and skull, broken ribs and a lacerated aorta and liver and later died at nearby Weiss Memorial Hospital, authorities said.

At a court hearing on Thursday, the judge didn't cave to her team's pleas and ordered her held without bail until her murder trial.

"The act of dropping a newborn out of an eighth-story window to its eventual death is exceedingly evil, exceedingly cruel," Judge James Brown said at the hearing.

Her defense attorneys had argued for the judge to set bail for her release, citing her sadness since the baby's death.

"Standing before you is someone who is heartbroken and sad...She is a confused, older teenager," one of her attorneys Barry Sheppard said, according to NBC. "She's extremely contrite. She's saddened. She's been crying."

Uddin, who's being treated for depression at the Cook County jail, waved to her parents during the hearing and they support Uddin "100 percent," according to Sheppard.

But she may have cracked under their intense pressure, according to her attorneys, friends and family.

"With all her family has put her through, I'm surprised she didn't jump out of the window herself," the baby's grandmother and the mother of Uddin's unidentified former boyfriend said.

The grandmother says Uddin doesn't deserve the charges because she wasn't in the right state of mind, according to DNAinfo. But she would've taken the baby in.

Prosecutors said that Uddin admitted guilt after investigators found that she may have been pregnant and that her family's apartment was directly above the grassy area where the baby was discovered.

"At that moment, she probably wasn't thinking and she cracked...because the Mubashra I know wouldn't do something like this if she was in right state of mind," Nina O. wrote in her letter.

Her defense team will investigate whether or not the newborn's death was an accident and expects to file a motion asking a judge to review her bond.