John Jefferson
Top inset: Samantha Sebella. Bottom inset: Steven Valle (Jasper County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Wheatfield, Indiana, home where cops found bone fragments of two children (WGN/YouTube).
A probable cause arrest affidavit details how a mother and father from Indiana allegedly killed their two children and then burned their bodies in a firepit in the backyard after excavating them from their homemade graves.
Steven Valle, 31, and Samantha Sebella, 25, are facing charges of murder, neglect of a dependent causing death, abuse of a corpse and failure to report a dead body.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office said deputies began investigating Sept. 20 after one of the couple’s friends contacted the agency about Valle confiding in him, “I killed my two kids,” the affidavit obtained by Law&Crime said. When the friend inquired further, Valle allegedly said they had “smothered their first born but had drown the second born and burnt their bodies in the firepit at their house.”
Cops referred to the dead children as “undocumented,” meaning they were born at home and never received any documentation like a birth certificate, social security number and the like.
Detectives found Valle and Sebella at a hotel in Newton County. They denied any knowledge, but cops took their phones as evidence. Meanwhile, a third undocumented child was removed from their custody.
On Sept. 30, the Sheriff’s Office, Indiana State Police, Jasper County Coroner’s Office, along with two cadaver dogs, descended on the property in Wheatfield where Valle and Sebella used to live. The couple had reportedly been evicted from the property earlier this year. The dogs alerted to three separate locations on the property where investigators uncovered bone fragments.
Cops took the fragments to a specialist in Indianapolis for testing to determine if they were from an infant or animal. The bones were determined to be human, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Data extraction on Oct. 1 of Sebella’s phone unveiled incriminating text messages between her and Valle. She allegedly texted him shortly after 11 a.m. Sept. 17: “GUESS WHAT BABY KILLER.” About an hour later, she texted him: “You killed my kids cause you are a f—-t you never loved me.” The next day Valle allegedly responded: “Yeah I know the fire will be known for what you did.”
Sebella also reportedly texted: “YOU KILLED OUR BABIES I HAVE THERE DNA IN BODY FOREVER” and “They will know everything you took me to the doctor in 2017 to prove that I was pregnant THEY WILL KNOW.”
Police also allegedly found a “Baby Center” app on her phone that documented the progress of her pregnancy and uploaded key dates to her Google Calendar.
On Thursday, detectives confronted Valle with this evidence. He admitted Sebella gave birth to a boy in 2018 while he was on his way home, the affidavit said. But when he arrived, he claimed he found Sebella passed out with the child between her legs not breathing. He said the boy weighed about 10 pounds and was 18 inches long.
“Steven said he cleaned him up to make him look ‘pretty,’ wrapped him in a baby blanket, face exposed, and placed him in a box,” the affidavit said. “Steven said after three days, he knew the child wouldn’t be coming back to life so he wrapped him completely in the blanket and buried him in the backyard near a shed.”
Valle reportedly told investigators that “some time” after the boy’s death, Sebella became pregnant again. This time she gave birth to a “premature” girl in the bathtub while he was at work. According to the affidavit, he claimed the girl was dead when he got home. He said he buried her next to the boy.
The children were buried for about three to five years before he dug them up and burned them in the firepit, cops wrote. He allegedly sifted through the ashes and saw some bone fragments.
“Steven stated that he kept some of the ashes to make a necklace as a memento,” the affidavit said.
Sebella and Valle remain in jail.
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