MANCHESTER, NH – A city woman is being held without bail in the Valley Street jail after waiving arraignment Friday on a felony charge of second-degree murder in the death of her newborn whose body was found in a pond nearly a year ago.
Hepay Juma, 26, last known address of 73 Ahern St., reserved the right to revisit the issue of bail at a later date.
She waived arraignment in 9th Circuit – District Division – Manchester and the judge set a probable cause hearing for March 5.
Juma’s arrest came after an 11-month investigation into the death of the newborn, who came to be known as “Baby Grace.” The infant’s body was recovered on March 27, 2025 from Pine Island Pond. Investigators believe someone placed the baby in the pond sometime between March 25 and 27, 2025.
Juma is accused of recklessly causing the baby’s death “under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life, to wit, Juma did cause the death of Baby Doe by homicide by unspecified means,” according to the complaint.
Investigators have not said how they came to identify Juma as the infant’s mother. The court sealed the affidavit in the case at the prosecutors’ request.
“Unfortunately, we can’t go into much detail about what that involved in terms of the identification,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Chong Yen told WMUR. “But what we can say is that Manchester was tireless in terms of tracking down every lead, following up on information provided by the public and making sure that they took the investigative steps necessary to be able to make the correct identification.”