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Sarah Mangus (left) cries during a Multnomah County Circuit Court hearing Thursday. Her husband, Jamie Mangus, is seated on the far right. Sarah Mangus' defense attorney, Kami White, is pictured in the center.

(Aimee Green/The Oregonian)

Sarah Mangus -- the homeless, meth-addicted woman who wandered around Portland with her husband and their newborn until the baby died at just 12 hours old -- purposely didn't give birth to the girl at a Portland hospital, according to a police detective.

That’s because Oregon child welfare-workers had taken away at least two of Mangus’ previous newborns that were born in hospitals, after workers discovered the babies were born addicted to drugs, the detective said. And Sarah Mangus and her husband, Jamie Mangus, were worried if this baby was born in an Oregon hospital, child-welfare workers would immediately take custody of her, the detective said.

So the Manguses said they planned to have the baby born at a hospital in the Kelso-Longview area of Washington, where child-welfare workers might not know about their track record in Oregon, the detective said. But Sarah Mangus never made it there.

A day or two after her water broke on a MAX train near the Rose Quarter, she gave birth to the girl in a friend's North Portland home, in the 8500 block of North Swift Way. It was 4:29 a.m. on April 12.

That’s all according to testimony Thursday from Portland police Det. Bryan Steed, who recounted interviews police had with the Manguses. The detective appeared in Multnomah County Circuit Court before Judge Henry Kantor.

Defense attorneys have asked the judge to allow the Manguses to be released from jail pending their trials for murder by abuse and first-degree manslaughter. Currently, both are in jail with no possibility of posting bail.

Sarah Mangus, 29, admitted to using methamphetamine as recently as 12 hours before her daughter's birth, the detective said. Jamie Mangus, 34, denied using meth, but a blood test showed he had it in his system on the day of his daughter's birth and death, the detective said.

The couple named the girl Krystal. An autopsy showed she died from methamphetamine intoxication and neonatal pneumonia.

Steed shared more new details about the police investigation into the baby's death.

Portland police homicide Det. Bryan Steed

After the girl was born, the Manguses walked around and rode the bus for hours: buying snacks at a 7-Eleven store at North St. Louis Avenue and Lombard Street, trying to buy a tool that would suck mucus out of the baby's nose at a Dollar Store, sitting in the deli area of the St. Johns Safeway and traveling to an uncle's house on North Newman Avenue to show off the baby.

The detective said Sarah Mangus told police that while at the 7-Eleven, she noticed the baby was in distress.

"She had freaked out because the child was purplish-blue and had stopped breathing," the detective said. "So she sat down on the floor for a few minutes so her baby could recover."

The detective also said police interviewed Safeway employees, who said they were concerned for the baby but didn't call 911.

One Safeway employee said she noticed Sarah Mangus making funny faces and acting oddly, as if she was high on drugs. The employee told police she could see Mangus repeatedly picking at the baby, who was purplish blue.

"I don't know what she was picking at," the employee said, according to police reports. "It made me sick."

The employee told police that a while later, she noticed the baby's umbilical cord was gone, and she thought that was strange because it naturally takes many days or even weeks to fall off. The employee said she also noticed the baby was bleeding a large amount from her abdomen.

The detective said the employee asked a supervisor if she could call 911, but the supervisor said no -- saying he wasn't going to take a baby away from its mom, because that would be like taking a lion cub away from a lioness.

Judge Henry Kantor

"She thought someone should call 911, but she's a new employee," Steed said. "She'd only been there for four or five months. ... She was being told 'No.' ... She thought her job was in jeopardy."

Another Safeway employee -- who is a mother and grandmother -- told police she heard a faint cry coming from the baby and that it didn't seem right.

That employee told police she saw Jamie Mangus try to feed the baby with a bottle in one hand, while he texted on his phone with the other. But the baby wouldn't eat.

"She described him as disinterested -- more intent on texting on his phone than interested in the baby," the detective said, relaying the words of the employee.

The baby died about six hours after the couple left Safeway. Sarah Mangus told police that she noticed the baby wasn't breathing after they got off a TriMet bus and were walking up to an uncle's house on North Newman Avenue at about 4:30 p.m. She said she went into the house and put the baby's head under cold water to try to revive the baby. Her husband told police that he was searching for a mirror, to put it under the baby's nose to see if she was breathing. Someone called 911.

Defense attorneys also got their turns to ask the detective questions, which offered a glimmer of the defense -- that the Manguses might argue during trial that they were unaware their baby was in danger of dying.

Jamie Mangus' attorney, Tom Hanrahan, asked the detective if the couple had tried to give the baby something to eat, accepted bandages and rubbing alcohol from Safeway employees and were car-less, so they couldn't drive to a Washington hospital. The detective answered that yes, the couple had told him all of those things.

The detective also agreed with Hanrahan that the couple had been out with their newborn in public, and that they had not been trying to hide the baby.

Two more prosecution witnesses are expected to testify Thursday afternoon. The judge could make his decision Thursday.

Check back at OregonLive.com for more details.

-- Aimee Green