But it wasn't the patch of Americana that it seemed: Corneau and her husband are members of a clannish religious sect that calls itself a "sovereign nation."

The group of a dozen or so adults from three interrelated families rejects most aspects of mainstream society and governmental authority, adhering strictly to what they interpret as the tenets of the Old Testament. They home school their 13 children. The men sport long beards while the women often wear dresses that cover them from neck to toe. And perhaps most significantly, they don't believe in conventional medicine, regarding it as blasphemous. "Only one holds the key to life and death, and that's God Almighty himself," Rebecca's husband, David, was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.

It is this belief that has made Corneau the center of a roiling debate about the rights of women to refuse medical care on behalf of their unborn children. Now eight months pregnant and awaiting the birth of her child under the watchful eyes of armed guards in a medical facility, she has become the unlikely poster child for pro-choice activists and an eerie specter of things to come for medical ethicists who are concerned the case forecasts an erosion of important individual rights.

How Corneau found herself at the center of this imbroglio is a strange tale. Despite her group's contrarian ways, they had managed to maintain a peaceful, uneventful existence in their ordinary neighborhood. Then last November an ex-member turned in a fistful of diary entries (by whom it is unclear) indicating that the group sat by and watched Corneau's last child, a boy named Jeremiah, choke to death within moments of birth. Group members say Jeremiah was stillborn.

The diary entries also suggested that another member's child had starved to death after sect members received word that God wanted the baby to get by just on breast milk.

The local law pounced vigorously. Bristol County Police trotted out a backhoe and cadaver-sniffing dogs to the homes of cult members and to a forest in Maine for a series of televised, but ultimately fruitless, grave-digging expeditions.

Since then, the story has unraveled into ever weirder iterations as county officials who sought to censure the sect began to exhibit their own idiosyncrasies.

After the court convened a special grand jury to look into the allegations, the group's men refused to answer questions and ended up being cited for contempt and thrown in prison. Months dragged by, and still the investigation failed to turn up enough evidence make a criminal case. Then this summer Juvenile Court Judge Kenneth P. Nasif declared the group members unfit parents and removed the 13 children from their custody.

At each step along the way, investigators have said they hoped one of the sect members would crack and start talking about how the babies died and where they had been buried. But so far not one member has offered any significant testimony.

Investigators fell back on their only evidence, poring over journal entries in search of clues into the sect's isolated lives. According to local press reports, they often referred to the Bible to interpret the cryptic journal entries. "Of 4 billion inhabitants presently breathing, only a handful are being trained," one entry says ominously. "The rest are tools of Satan to try and destroy God's anointed."

Nasif answered the sect members verse for verse, thrashing the sect's leader with a quote from the Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 23: "'I am against those who prophesy false dreams,'" he said. "I want you to think about that."

As the months passed, Rebecca Corneau grew larger. Gradually her swelling belly focused the public gaze on the baby yet to be born, drawing attention away from the search for dead babies. Investigators contended that Corneau could have saved her last baby with a simple clearing of his air passages. After all, if she allowed her other baby to die, couldn't it happen to this one as well? Wouldn't it be safer for her to subject herself to a little medical inspection?

"We'd like to make sure that this doesn't happen again," says Eddie Sirois, chief of staff for the Bristol County district attorney. "We're afraid that something will take place. We're looking to make sure that baby has a shot."