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Boulder – A judge on Friday sentenced a Colorado woman who cut a baby from a stranger’s womb to 100 years in prison, including the maximum penalties for attempted murder and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. Judge Maria Berkenkotter said the harshest sentences for the most serious charges were justified by the brutality of the 2015 attack, which she described as performing a caesarean with a kitchen knife.
Berkenkotter also said the victim, Michelle Wilkins, as well as her family and the community needed Dynel Lane, 36, to express remorse.
Lane murmured a “no” when the judge asked if she wanted to speak. Lane also did not speak in her defence during her trial, which ended in February when jurors found her guilty of attempting to kill Wilkins after luring her victim to her home with an ad for maternity clothes.
David Ridley, who lived with Lane and her two daughters, testified at the trial that Lane claimed for more than a year that she was expecting a boy, whom they planned to name James. Friends even threw a baby shower. Ridley had grown suspicious by the time Lane lured Wilkins to her Longmont home. Wilkins testified they chatted for about an hour before Lane hit, pushed and tried to choke her, then used two kitchen knives to cut the baby from her womb.
When Ridley came home early from work that day to meet Lane for a doctor’s appointment, he said he found the foetus in a bathtub and drove the child and Lane to a hospital, where she begged staff to save her baby.
Lane said nothing to Ridley about Wilkins, who was unconscious at her home. Wilkins regained consciousness and called police. — AFP
Online Reporter