GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) -The woman who pleaded guilty to causing the death of two infants, including one later known as “Julie Valentine” was sentenced on Thursday, according to the 13th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.
According to sentencing sheets shared with 7NEWS by the solicitor’s office, Graham was sentenced to 10 years suspended to five years of home incarceration, with credit for time she has already served behind bars and a five year probation period after her time in house arrest.
With time served, she will spend less than a year in home incarceration.
Background on the case:
Graham was arrested in 2019 on two charges of unlawful neglect to a child. The charges related to two children who were found abandoned in 1989 and 1990 in Greenville County.
According to an arrest affidavit, Graham and her boyfriend, the child’s biological father, lived in close proximity to where the infant was abandoned.
Greenville Police said Graham is the birth mother of a newborn, known as “Julie Valentine”, who was found abandoned in a vacant lot on Hilton Street in 1990.
The infant’s body was found Feb. 13, 1990, by a man picking flowers to give his wife for Valentine’s Day. The baby was in a cardboard box, covered with bedding and rags, among garbage in a field.
Police said investigators determined the infant was full-term. It’s believed she was born three days before she was discovered.
In addition to ‘Julie Valentine,’ police said a baby boy was found dead in a garbage bag in 1989. That boy was also determined by police to be the biological child of Graham.
Graham was originally charged with murder in the case but the charge was dropped because medical examiners were unable to find out how the infant died.
In May 2022 Brook Graham pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful neglect of a child and desecration of human remains.
The plea was accepted by the judge as an Alford plea, meaning Graham maintained her innocence but admitted the prosecution’s evidence would likely result in a guilty verdict if brought to trial.
