Frankfort, Ind. -- Along the south edge of the town cemetery, beyond the headstones of Frankfort's first families and the graves of war veterans, stands a cluster of hemlocks. When Margarita Booth thinks of her sister Anna Marie, she envisions a place for her there, under a simple marker at the foot of a stone angel that watches over the children of Babyland.
A proper burial for a child, whose death about 25 years ago at age 3 remained a secret until recurring nightmares of Anna Marie's tear-stained face led Mrs. Booth to tell police what she says only a few family members knew: that the child died at the hands of their mother and was buried in a field by their stepfather.
It was a startling revelation that resulted in the imprisonment this summer of Mrs. Booth's 52-year-old mother. Unlike last week's drama in South Carolina, where a mother was charged with murdering her two sons 10 days after tearfully claiming they had been kidnapped, the disappearance of young Anna Marie went unnoticed in this small Indiana farm community.
Until Mrs. Booth purged herself of the family secret. In doing so, she shed much of her guilt but inherited a new burden: the contempt of her brothers and sisters, who in their anger and feelings of betrayal have rallied around their mother.
Anita Vega's conviction of involuntary manslaughter in the death of one child was based almost solely on her daughter's testimony. Mrs. Booth contends her mother beat Anna Marie and punished her with cold baths for wetting her pants. The child's body has never been found.
By telling authorities, Mrs. Booth had hoped to find her sister's remains. She wanted to fulfill a pledge she made as a frightened 9-year-old girl forced to play a role in her sister's death. She said her mother ordered her to run the punishing cold bath and to nudge her younger sister into it.
"I made a promise to myself to go get her [Anna Marie] and bring her home," said Mrs. Booth, who remembers her stepfather's leaving their house with the child's body in a box. "That has always stuck with me. That is a promise I had to fulfill."
But Mrs. Booth is no closer to fulfilling that promise today than when she first told police nearly two years ago about the death.
When police first questioned Mrs. Booth's mother about her family, she named all of her children -- except Anna Marie. They pressed, but she denied having a daughter by that name. Confronted with the child's birth certificate, Mrs. Vega then denied the child was hers. Eventually, her story of Anna Marie's death spilled out.
