On Monday Muskingum County Common Pleas Judge Mark Fleegle sentenced the 21-year-old Weaver to life in prison without parole. Words can not express how sorry I am to my lovely daughter Addison.
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Prosecutors said Weaver gave birth in a bathroom at the Delta Gamma Theta sorority at Muskingum University on April 22, 2015, then purposefully caused the death of her baby. She was found guilty of aggravated murder and other charges in May.
Prosecutors said she put the newborn in a plastic rubbish bag and left the bag outside the sorority house, where she died by asphyxiation. But the jury wasn’t convinced of her defense, which prompted them to render a guilty verdict, noting that Weaver did not show any sign of remorse after doing the crime, ABC News reported.
She was arrested and held on $1million bail after her sorority sisters found the baby tied in a plastic bag on the ground next to a large trash can outside their house the same night Weaver gave birth.
OH has a safe haven law, meaning she could have dropped the baby off at the nearby campus police station and have faced no charges. After leaving Addison to die, Weaver texted the man she believed to be the girl’s father with “no more baby” and “taken care of”, NBC Chicago reports.
Weaver knew she was pregnant all along and engaged in risky behaviors like drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana and playing in a dodgeball tournament because she never meant to keep the baby, prosecutors said. She is attempting to appeal her sentence.
21-year-old Emile Weaver was found guilty back in May of aggravated murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence by an OH jury, and yesterday’s sentence will land her in prison for the rest of her life, pending appeal.
“In those four paragraphs, you mention “I” 15 times”, Fleegle said.
But Judge Mark Fleegle was unconvinced that she felt any true remorse and pointed out that the words “I” and “my” appeared a total of 20 times in her statement.
“Once again, it’s all about you”, he told Weaver. He stated that, though he could have handed down a lighter sentence (like life in prison, but with a chance for parole), he didn’t do so because he didn’t believe Emile was actually remorseful.
All this comes after Weaver initially pled not guilty by reason of insanity, only to have the judge deny that plea and find her mentally competent to stand trial.
It wasn’t until her baby’s funeral that Emile Weaver came to fully comprehend her actions, staring at newborn Addison’s lifeless little body in a tiny casket.
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The law provides protection from prosecution only for the child ‘s parents.
