Friday, April 26, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Five years after their infant daughter was killed and her body hauled in a suitcase to Arizona where it was burned and left in a desert ravine, James and Lillian Meegan of Las Vegas have agreed to plead guilty to the crime.
They waived their preliminary hearings Thursday in Justice of the Peace Nancy Oesterle's courtroom to send the cases to District Court for arraignment May 2.
The deal came after Lillian Meegan talked with her husband for more than 45 minutes before the preliminary hearing in which she and their 17-year-old daughter Maria were scheduled to testify as prosecution witnesses.
In the plea bargain, James Meegan, 39, agreed to plead guilty to murder by child abuse and leave it up to District Judge Sally Loehrer to determine if the resulting life prison sentence should be with or without the possibility of parole.
Lillian Meegan, 35, is set to plead guilty to child abuse with substantial bodily harm for failing to get prompt medical attention for the child. The district attorney's office will not oppose probation for her, although she could be sentenced up to 20 years in prison.
Deputy District Attorney John Lukens said Lillian and Maria Meegan were in the family's Las Vegas home but not in the same room with James Meegan when he is alleged to have shaken 11-month-old Francine to death in early October 1990.
"Meegan became irate because Francine was crying," the prosecutor said.
Lukens said Lillian Meegan tried to revive the infant with CPR while Maria, then 11 years old, watched.
But the efforts were futile. Lukens said Lillian Meegan indicated a decision was made to dispose of the infant's body, move to a new neighborhood and let no one know the baby had existed.
The secret was guarded in the close-knit family for five years, the prosecutor said.
"What a terrible secret to keep," Lukens said.
The baby's birth was even hidden from relatives, perhaps because it was believed by James Meegan that Francine was the product of an affair by Lillian Meegan, Lukens confirmed.
Francine was adopted out by the Meegans to a California couple when she was 2 days old but "repossessed" shortly before her death when the Californians refused demands for more money than the $30,000 they already had paid.
Lukens said after the baby died, she was placed in a suitcase and put in the trunk of the family's car. They then drove to a relative's home near Prescott, Ariz., halfway between Phoenix and Flagstaff.
The rest of the family followed in a car driven by Lillian Meegan's brother, although neither he nor any of the children knew the purpose of the trip, Lukens said.
While the children were with their aunt, the Meegans took the body to a dry wash, where they took it out of the suitcase, doused it with gasoline and set it ablaze.
The charred remains -- undisturbed by rain, wind or even animals -- were found a week later by cowboys driving cattle up the wash.
"They thought it was a doll," Lukens said.
For years, Arizona authorities sought the identity of the infant dubbed "Baby Jane Doe," but even widespread publicity failed to produce results.
It wasn't until the wife of a Yavapai County Sheriff's Office detective read a Las Vegas newspaper article about the Meegan case that a name could be put on the body.
With the plea bargain, Lukens said , "Now a lot of people can rest in peace: Francine, the Jensens (who tried to adopt her), Maria and Lillian and maybe Jim."
When James Meegan is sentenced, Lukens said Lillian and Maria Meegan will speak on his behalf.
He said Maria Meegan is expected to say "that she loves her father and he's a good person."
Word of their missing baby finally leaked out early this year from a former in-law and police came knocking on their door demanding to know the child's whereabouts.
The story officers got from a rattled Lillian Meegan was that the baby had been kidnapped from her car outside a casino, where the child had been left unattended while she cashed a check inside.
The woman contended the kidnapping wasn't reported because the family didn't want the police scrutiny.
But the story didn't hold water and prosecutors charged the parents with murder.
Both were in jail until April 2 when Lillian Meegan gave a statement to authorities about her missing baby, despite pressure from her husband, whom Lukens described as "domineering."
He stayed behind bars but she was released with the promise that she would be a witness for the prosecution.
The plea bargains would appear to open the door for Lillian Meegan to regain custody of her five remaining children who were taken away from her at the time of her arrest. Maria and another child are living with relatives but the others are housed at Child Haven pending a decision of the Juvenile Court.
Lukens said his office would take no position on the child custody issue but noted that "she doesn't appear to be a danger to any of her other children."
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