Corbin woman pleads not guilty to charges she suffocated newborn, threw it in prison trash can

A Corbin woman accused of killing her newborn baby by stuffing paper its mouth and dumping its body in a trash can at Roederer Correctional Complex in LaGrange, is in custody at the Oldham County Detention Center on a $2.5 million bond.

Ashley N. Cox, 20, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of first-degree murder and concealing the birth of an infant. She will return to Oldham District Court Wednesday for a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to present the case to a grand jury.

According to Kentucky State Police, prison officials contacted them about 11 a.m. Sunday, saying that a female visitor, later identified as Cox, was taken by ambulance to Baptist East Hospital in Louisville after suffering a miscarriage in one of the facility’s bathrooms.

"At approximately 4 p.m., it was determined that the female visitor did not have a miscarriage, but instead gave birth to a full term baby," said Kentucky State Police Trooper Michael B. Webb, public affairs officer at Post 5 in Campbellsburg.

Corrections staff searching the facility found the baby hidden in a trash can about 30 minutes later.

In the arrest report obtained by the Louisville Courier Journal, police claim Cox stuffed toilet paper into the newborn’s mouth until the baby could not breathe.

Oldham County Coroner Brett Donner pronounced the baby dead at the scene.