Brittany Watts, Ohio woman charged with felony after miscarriage at home, describes shock of her arrest

Warning: This story contains graphic language and content that some may find disturbing. 

When Brittany Watts woke up at her Warren, Ohio, home on Sept. 22, 2023, she knew she was miscarrying. 

Her 22-week-old fetus had been declared nonviable by doctors several days prior. Bleeding and in pain, she spent a total of 19 hours in the hospital over a span of two days, begging to be induced.

But an ethics group at Mercy Health - St. Joseph Warren Hospital had concerns about Ohio's abortion laws and how they applied to Watts' case, ultimately resulting in hours of delayed care. 

Watts, frustrated with the lengthy wait times, said she left the hospital both days against medical advice. She said she miscarried alone in her own bathroom.

When Watts returned to Mercy Health for medical care following the miscarriage she says a nurse rubbed her back and told her everything would be okay before calling the police at the direction of the hospital's risk management team and asking them to go to her home to find the fetus.

As Watts recovered in her hospital bed, officers from the Warren City Police Department searched her home. They eventually found the fetus, lodged in the traps of the toilet. 

Watts was charged with abuse of a corpse – a felony charge that was ultimately dismissed earlier this month after an Ohio grand jury declined to indict her.

CBS News reviewed more than 600 pages of medical records as well as 911 transcripts and police records to understand what happened, and why Watts believes doctors, police and the state of Ohio failed her.

"I don't want any other woman to go through what I had to go through," Watts told CBS News in an exclusive interview.

Who is Brittany Watts?

Brittany Watts is 34 and has lived in Warren, Ohio, her entire life. The former steel town sits about 15 miles northwest of Youngstown and is home to nearly 40,000, according to 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data. 

The soft-spoken medical receptionist describes herself as quiet and mild-mannered, "most of the time just minding my own business." 

After learning she was pregnant, she kept the news to herself, fearing she'd disappoint her mother, with whom she is very close.

So when Watts began leaking fluid on Sept. 19, 2023, she immediately went to see her doctor who confirmed her water had broken. She didn't know the events that occurred over the next four days would consume her next four months.

"I went to my OBGYN once I started bleeding. And so I'm thinking something's not right," Watts said. "She got me on the table and started examining me, and she said 'I can feel the baby's head.'"

Watts' doctor informed her that the fetus was unviable, and sent her to Mercy Health – St. Joseph Warren Hospital, just across the parking lot from her office. Despite it being a short, walkable distance, she required Watts to travel by ambulance. That's when it really set in for Watts that the situation was very serious. 

"I waited in the hospital, waiting for the doctor to come in or call. And I kept asking whoever would come in to check my vitals – I said, 'Have you heard anything?' And they were like, 'Oh, well, we're still waiting, we're still waiting."

Medical records show Watts was monitored for about eight hours in the hospital. But after becoming frustrated with the long wait and what she felt was a lack of answers, Watts left the hospital, despite doctors warning her of potentially fatal complications, including risk of hemorrhage, sepsis and death.

"I was frustrated," Watts said. "I felt ignored. And I left against medical advice. And then I returned the next day thinking that there was going to be an induction or something."

Watts returned to the hospital the next day, where she received care for about 11 hours. Medical records show she was given an IV and was waiting to be induced – but that never happened.

Watts says she was unaware that doctors were waiting to hear back from the hospital's ethics committee before induction due to concerns about Ohio's abortion laws.

Timeline of events in Brittany Watts' case

Watts arrived at Mercy Health - St. Joseph Warren Hospital at 8:28 a.m. local time. At 12:57 p.m., according to records, her doctor had requested an "inpatient consult to ethics."

Records show that around the same time, a different doctor at the hospital examined Watts, and confirmed she had an abruption and premature rupture of membrane. Her white blood cell count was more than twice what it had been in the past, doctors said, and she needed immediate treatment before she found herself "on death's door."

"Because of this, mom is at great risk if she completely abruption in terms of hemorrhaging and dying. It does not make sense to me to wait till mom has bleeding to death before we deliver a nonviable pregnancy despite the fact that there is a heartbeat," the doctor wrote.

He continued, "I feel we would be endangering the mother by waiting for hemorrhage and/or sepsis or her to stop to the fetal heartbeat."

According to medical documents, staff at Mercy Health - St. Joseph Warren Hospital had also become concerned about Watts' use of the phrase "abortion." 

A note from the clinical ethics committee consultation, issued around 3:30 p.m. local time, reads in part, "Extensive conversation with [REDACTED] re: staff concerns about Brittany's verbalization to staff that she wishes to terminate the pregnancy and continues to mention she feels strongly that she is getting or consenting to an abortion. To clarify, ethics supports induction of this patient if it is the professional judgment of the physicians that Brittany is at high risk of bleeding and or serious infection that could lead to death. To be clear with Brittany, if induction occurs, there should be a well documented conversation with her (informed consent) that the procedure is only to prevent harm to her, and is not intended to terminate a potentially viable pregnancy."

Ohio law bans abortions after 22 weeks, with exceptions for life-saving care. Watts, according to records, was 21 weeks and six days pregnant.

"While the legislative environment has placed an increased focus on the necessity and importance of ethical reviews, our mission compels us to provide compassionate care to all," Mercy Health said in a statement to CBS News.

According to The National Library of Medicine, hospital ethics committees or consultation services exist in nearly every hospital in the U.S. and are tasked with addressing ethical issues in patient care. The groups are typically made up of physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, case managers, social workers, professional bioethics, chaplains, clergy, and patient and community representatives. They generally report to administrative leadership or the board of directors of the institution.

Watts says she was never told the ethics committee was involved at all, and she was unaware of why the process was taking so long.

Three hours after the committee issued its consultation report, she still had not been induced, according to the records.. 

Records also show there was a flurry of calls to the ethics committee around 6 p.m. local time to try to iron out any remaining issues. But by 6:40 p.m., Watts had become frustrated, and told a nurse that she could be waiting at home instead. The nurse told her they were awaiting only had one more call, but Watts had had enough.

By 7:20 p.m., reports show she had left her hospital room and checked out. 

Watts returned to her home, where she says she had dinner with her mother, who noticed she was in pain. Watts told her she had a stomach ache, and wanted to rest. She tried to distract herself by watching TV before going to bed.

Brittany Watts' miscarriage

On Sept. 22, just before 6 a.m. local time, Watts said she felt something happening.

"I get up, and I go to the bathroom. I sit down on the toilet and I'm just, I'm doubled over. And then that's when I hear 'splash.'"

Watts looked down, and saw the toilet was filled to the brim with blood and tissue. She immediately began cleaning herself up – using disinfecting wipes and her shower to wash off the blood.

"I tried to make an appearance of the bathroom being clean. I grabbed a plunger because the toilet was kind of to the top," she said. "I grabbed a bucket and I just tried to scoop out water and tissue and all the matter. And then I take the bucket outside and I dump the bucket."

"All while thinking, 'Wow, did that really just happen?' in my mind. I'm like, 'No, this is a dream. I'm dreaming.' But it really happened. Like I'm really awake right now. This is really what life is like now."

After cleaning up, Watts tried to go about her day. She went to a previously scheduled hair appointment, but as the hairdresser began perming her hair, she noticed Watts was uncomfortable and expressed concern for her health. Watts told her she was "just menstruating," but the hairdresser insisted that she see a doctor and arranged a ride to the hospital.

When she arrived, Watts was given immediate medical attention. She was given an IV – dehydrated after losing so much blood. 

"The nurse comes in and she's rubbing my back and talking to me and saying, 'Everything's going to be okay. You're going to be okay,'" Watts said. "Little do I know, there's a police officer that comes into the room a short time later. And I'm wondering, 'Why is a police officer coming in here? I don't recall doing anything wrong.' And little do I know the nurse comforting me and saying that everything was gonna be okay was the one who called police."

The call to police was made at the direction of the hospital's risk management team.

Police investigation of Brittany Watts

CBS News obtained the 911 call, in which the nurse tells the dispatcher that she was treating a "mother who had a delivery at home and came in without the baby."

"She says the baby's in her backyard in a bucket," the nurse told the dispatcher. "And I need to have someone go find this baby or direct me on what I need to do."

The nurse told the dispatcher she believed the bucket was near Watts' trash.

"Oh, I'm going to be sick," the dispatcher responded. "Did she say if the baby was alive or not?"

"She said she didn't wanna look," the nurse said. "She said she didn't want the baby, and she didn't look."

Watts told CBS News she never said that she didn't want her baby.

"I said I did not want to look. I never said I didn't want my baby. I would have never said something like that. It just makes me so angry that somebody would put those type of words in my mouth to make me seem so callous. And so, so hateful."

Dispatchers for the Warren Police Department called the nurse back for more information. 

"It's evident she did give birth. We still have a retained placenta and she was our patient here on Wednesday – pregnant and left," the nurse said. "We re-admitted her and we were talking her through everything and then she just disappeared."

"Okay," the dispatcher said. "We have officers on the way to the residence first."

"If they find it, can they please bring it to us?" the nurse asked. "Because we can dispose of it properly, like through the Ohio Department of Health."

A Warren Police Department officer went to Watts' hospital room, and interviewed her for over an hour. Other officers went to her home to search for the fetus. Watts was alerted they were at her home by the doorbell camera.

At first, police said they couldn't find it. It wasn't in the bucket.

Watts' attorney, Traci Timko, tells CBS News that an officer finally submerged his hand into the toilet and felt the fetus.

"The testimony was, 'felt feet in the trap of the toilet,'" Timko said. "That's where the fetus was. Brit didn't know where the fetus was. She was never able to see it."

Watts confirmed she never saw the fetus.

In order to send the remains to the coroner's office, police had to remove the entire toilet.

Brittany Watts' arrest and felony charge

After being discharged from the hospital, Watts returned home to rest and recover. On Oct. 5, she says she was asleep when her mother got the phone call from police.

"She comes in my room and she's in a panic. And I'm thinking something happened to a loved one or a family friend or something," Watts said. "And she's saying, 'Can I bring her down to the station? Can I bring her down to the station?' I'm like, 'Bring who down to the station?' And she gets off the phone and she said, 'There's a warrant out for your arrest.' And I said, 'For what?'"

Watts says the police officer who had interviewed her at the hospital came to her house, put her in handcuffs, and took her down to the police station. 

Watts was arrested by the Warren Police Department and charged with abuse of a corpse – a felony carrying up to a $2,500 fine and up to one year in prison. She pleaded not guilty in court.

Watts says she left the police station the same day she was charged, and returned home where she tried to process the charges, and the idea of going to prison.

Ohio law defines "abuse of a corpse" as the treating of a human corpse in a way that would outrage reasonable family or community sensibilities.

Her attorney says it's a very rare charge and that she struggled to understand why police were involved at all given that the corpse in question was fetal remains.

"In the course of representing her, I was met time and time again with, 'You can't flush a fetus,'" Timko said. "And I would say, 'What do you want her to do with it?' To which there's no response."

The Warren police department did not return CBS News' request for comment.

Timko says the heart of the legal issue involves the definition of a corpse. 

"Fetal remains are defined as a product of human conception. Under Ohio law, they are disposed of as medical waste," she said. "Legally speaking, there's no definition of the term corpse directly. So we had to go in a roundabout way to establish a corpse does not include fetal remains. The state defining corpse in a clearer way would take the ability for prosecutors away to criminalize a pregnancy outcome in this manner."

Watts says the Warren City Prosecutor's Office accused her in court of disregarding the fetus and simply going on about her day, citing her hair appointment.

"What do you want me to do in that situation?" Watts said, referring to the prosecutor's argument. "Don't you go about your day? I mean, yes, you seek medical attention, but miscarriages happen all the time. Whether you're at home, whether you're at work, whether you're out in the general public, or at the store, you never know when things like this are going to happen. So who are you to say that I went on about my day? You don't know what I did. You don't know where I was. You just know that I went and got my hair done, but do you know where I was after that? No. You don't."

The Warren Municipal Court sent the case to the Trumbull County Prosecutor's Office on Nov. 14. 

Trumbull County Prosecuting Attorney Dennis Watkins says his office had no choice but to send the case to a grand jury, which was tasked with determining whether to return an indictment on the felony charge. 

Charge dropped against Brittany Watts

On Jan. 11, the Trumbull County grand jury declined to indict Watts.

Watkins issued a statement reading in part, "After a careful evaluation of both sides' positions, interviewing witnesses, and researching and applying the law, believe that Brittany Watts did not violate the Ohio Criminal Statue of Abuse of a Corpse as alleged in the complaint. We respectfully disagree with the lower court's application of the law."

A rally had been planned that day outside of the courthouse as a show of support for Watts. After the charge was dismissed, the rally turned into a celebration. 

"I'm truly honored and grateful that all of you have come to support me. And we are not done fighting," Watts told the crowd of about 150 people.

Watts says her focus now is getting to work on making sure the laws are changed and people are educated on what to do during miscarriages.

"As the old saying goes," she said, "history repeats itself. I don't want it to happen in this case."

Jericka Duncan

Jericka Duncan is a national correspondent based in New York City and the anchor for Sunday's edition of the "CBS Weekend News."

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