A Colorado woman has been sentenced to a total of 100 years in prison for attempted murder after cutting a seven-month-old foetus from the womb of an expectant mother. He rushed her and the baby to the hospital.
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“You left me there to die multiple times”, Wilkins added.
In 2002, Lane’s 19-month-old son drowned in what investigators decided was an accident.
In 2015, Dynel Lane posted to Craigslist that she had baby clothes available, KDVR reports. However, the court did not hear the claims. At that point, Lane told him that she had suffered a miscarriage. Lane had been convicted back in May, but the sentencing stage was a lengthy one. Wilkins addressed Lane personally, calling herself a “compassionate” person and telling Lane that she “needed healing”.
Judge Maria Berkenkotter called the 100-year sentence justified because the crime was “brutal, shocking and cruel” and said it was “miraculous” Wilkins survived. She gasped “No” as she was sentenced. but she may have got off lightly as prosecutors had pressed for the maximum term of 188 years.
When the judge asked Lane if she wanted to speak, she declined.
However, because a coroner confirmed the fetus never lived outside of the womb, a murder charge for the baby was not allowed. “It’s hard to imagine anyone would do this”, Judge Berkenkotter said. The remainder of her sentence was for assault charges in the attack.
Ridley had grown suspicious by the time Lane lured Wilkins to her Longmont home. Berkenkotter acknowledged that was Lane’s constitutional right.
In court, Wilkins had directed her words to Lane, who sat straight and showed no emotion as her victim spoke.
Defense attorneys contended during the trial that Lane had pretended to be pregnant for almost a year, and committed the attack in an unplanned, frenzied manner because she needed a baby to explain her pregnancy to Ridley.
Mark Wilkins, Michelle’s father, said the attack and death of baby Aurora has caused severe and permanent damage. Democrats rejected the measure, the third time such a proposal failed in Colorado.
During the trial, prosecutors focused on Lane’s obsession with having a baby and told the jury Lane lied about being pregnant.
To date 38 U.S. states have made the killing of a foetus a homicide despite objections from abortion-rights supporters.
Wilkins made her remarks sitting in the witness stand.
Lane said nothing to Ridley about Wilkins, who was unconscious at her home.
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Wilkins lost half her blood in the attack and was actually holding her own intestines when she called 911 for help.
