A Colorado woman was on Friday sentenced to 100 years in prison for cutting off a baby from a stranger’s womb with a kitchen knife last year.
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[AP Photo/ Longmont Police Department]In March, 2015, Dynel Lane placed a Craigslist ad for free maternity clothes that attracted the unsuspecting Michelle Wilkins to her house, about 40 miles from Denver.
A jury deliberated for about seven hours over two days in February before finding Lane, 35, guilty of attempted murder, unlawful termination of a pregnancy and assault for bludgeoning, stabbing and choking 27-year-old Wilkins and cutting out Wilkins’ unborn baby.
Lane’s attorneys did not try to deny that their client had attacked Wilkins with the aim of taking her unborn child and raising it as her own.
Jurors had heard that Lane went to elaborate lengths to feign her own pregnancy before attacking Wilkins.
The defense argued Lane’s attack was done impulsively and not planned. Lane also did not speak in her defense during her trial.
In court, Wilkins had directed her words to Lane, who sat straight and showed no emotion as her victim spoke.
Prosecutors did not pursue a murder charge for the unborn child as Colorado state law does not recognise a foetus as a person unless it is capable of surviving for a period of time outside the womb, a prosecutor said before trial. At that point, Lane told him that she had suffered a miscarriage.
A Colorado woman will spend the next 100 years in jail, if she lives long enough to complete the sentence. Michelle Wilkins expressed forgiveness, but said she still holds a lot of anger since the attack.
Lane murmured a “no” when the judge asked if she wanted to speak Friday. Wilkins, who was seven months pregnant at the time, was brutally beaten just before the former nurse’s aide cut open her uterus and removed the fetus.
During a conference following the sentencing, Boulder County DA Stan Garnett and Michelle Wilkins addressed the press. She could not be sentenced for murder because there was no evidence the baby lived outside the womb. He did not know about Wilkins, however, who called police after regaining consciousness.
“People are hungry to hear from Ms. Lane”, the judge said.
Lane plotted to steal the baby and convince her husband, David Ridley, it was theirs after faking a pregnancy for months, according to Reuters.
Dynel Lane was arrested in 2015, when she had brought the dead fetus into a hospital on the evening of the attack claiming she had miscarried, something the doctors did not believe.
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Mr Ridley didn’t realise Ms Wilkins was left unconscious at their home.
