What happened to Amari Marsh, the woman who was charged with murder after losing her pregnancy?

Amari Marsh was a college student at South Carolina State University last year when she got a text from a cop about a recent miscarriage. When she went to see the officer, who said he just needed “a follow up” to close the case, she was arrested for first degree murder. So what happened?

It was May of 2023 when that fateful text came in. “Sorry it has taken this long for paperwork to come back,” the officer wrote. “But I finally have the final report, and wanted to see if you and your boyfriend could meet me Wednesday afternoon….?”

Marsh didn’t think too much of it, considering the officer said they just wanted to finish things up with the case. She didn’t know she was actually under criminal investigation. She didn’t even think to get a lawyer.

Marsh originally took a pregnancy test in November of 2022. When she saw a positive result, she got frightened, according to an interview with CNN. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to let my parents down,” she said, adding that she was in a “state of shock.”

She decided against going to the doctor because she continued to get her period, leading her to believe that the test was wrong. Marsh said she never went to Planned Parenthood to terminate the pregnancy or tried to get a drug to induce an abortion.

However, an incident report filed by the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office on the day she miscarried said she did in January, raising questions of how she was treated by law enforcement officials following her harrowing ordeal.

Things came to a head on Feb. 28, 2023. Marsh said she experienced stomach pain that was much worse than her regular period cramps. She went to the hospital, but ended up leaving without treatment. When she went back home the pain got even worse, and this time she called an ambulance.

At the hospital, she was told the baby had a heartbeat. She left again. That night she woke up with the urge to use the bathroom.  “And when I did, the child came,” she said. “I screamed because I was scared, because I didn’t know what was going on.”

She called 911 and the dispatcher kept telling her to take the baby out of the toilet, but she didn’t “because I couldn’t even keep myself together.” Rescue workers arrived and could not save the newborn. “I kept asking to see the baby,” she said. “They wouldn’t let me.”

A sheriff’s deputy told her she wasn’t in trouble but the incident was under investigation. That text came 10 weeks later. She was arrested on June 2 on charges of murder/homicide by child abuse. A warrant accused her of not moving the baby from the toilet, which caused her death. They also cited respiratory issues from a maternal chlamydia infection.

She spent 22 days in jail, facing 20 years to life. She wore an ankle monitor for 13 months until she was finally cleared by a grand jury in August. Her case will not go to trial.

Marsh got pregnant when women in South Carolina could get an abortion up to 22 weeks into a pregnancy, but the law then changed for when a fetal heartbeat is detected. However, prosecutor David Pascoe, a Democrat elected to South Carolina’s 1st Judicial Circuit, said reproductive rights weren’t the issue. Regardless, Marsh said she wants to use the ordeal to “help other young women that are in my position now and will be in the future.”

“I always had faith that God was going to be on my side, but I didn’t know how it was going to go with the justice system we have today.”