BABY’S DEATH LEADS TO RAPE CHARGE (Man Impregnated Girl Who Abandoned Newborn, Cops Say)

David L. Mitchell, a 22-year-old man, is being held on a charge of raping a 14-year-old girl who is accused of leaving her newborn daughter to die in a shed.  He has admitted to having sex with Elizabeth Grace Law, but denies fathering her child.  Tests are being done to determine if he is the child's father.  He is charged with statutory rape because Law is a juvenile.  The girl admitted that she hid her pregnancy from her family and delivered the baby alone at home about a week before a man working on his vacation home in Townsend found the body in a wooden box.  A preliminary autopsy found that the baby died of dehydration.  

(Maryville, Tennessee)