A woman has been sentenced to 100 years in prison after cutting a seven-month-old foetus from an expectant mother’s womb.
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Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett had wanted the maximum sentence for Dynel Lane after a jury convicted her in February of attempting to kill Michelle Wilkins in 2015, reports CBS4.
She then attacked her and cut the baby from her womb. “Wilkins survived the March 18, 2015, attack but her unborn baby – a girl – did not”.
Ridley had grown suspicious by the time Lane lured Wilkins to her Longmont home.
The partner took Lane and the baby to the hospital without knowing that Wilkin was bleeding in the basement.
“You left me to die multiple times”, Wilkins said in court on Friday. Lane also was convicted of assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy after luring Wilkins with an ad for maternity clothes.
Because of state law, prosecutors said they could not charge Lane, 36, with murder in the unborn baby’s death.
A judge on Friday sentenced Lane to 100 years in prison for cutting a almost 8-month-old fetus from Michelle Wilkin’s womb.
The woman had lost her 19-year-old son in a drowning accident in 2002, which her family claims, may have led her to take such an action. “In this case, I believe justice was done and we’re pleased with the sentencing in this case”.
Authorities said Lane had been carrying out a ruse that she was pregnant. The baby, Aurora, did not.
“Judge Berkenkotter was clearly listening to everything that we were saying”, Ms Wilkins told reporters afterwards, adding she believed justice had been served.
Witnesses testified during the sentencing hearing both on Michelle Wilkins’ side and Lane’s side.
“She snapped. She had to have snapped”, Langdon told KRDO past year, “Something went wrong there”.
Judge Berkenkotter noted during sentencing that Lane never expressed remorse during the course of the trial.
Lane, who plans to appeal her conviction, did not address the court, but several of her family members expressed their sympathy to Wilkins and said that the attack was out of character for Lane, who they said is a caring person.
The child, later named Aurora, did not survive the attack. Berkenkotter acknowledged that was Lane’s constitutional right.
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Prosecutors argued during trial that Lane had planned the attack, and a doctor who treated Wilkins testified that the cesarian section appeared to have been done with a fair amount of proficiency. However, she and her mother were assaulted in the worst way and Michelle’s baby was killed. I have no doubt she understands what she has done.
