A Boulder County District Court judge handed down the sentence for
Dynel Lane, 35, for the grisly 2015 attack, which renewed a national
debate over whether a fetus is a person and if termination of a
pregnancy can ever be considered murder.
Michelle Wilkins, who was seven months pregnant, survived the attack
in the town of Longmont, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Denver. But
her unborn baby died.
A coroner concluded the fetus did not take a breath outside the
womb, so under Colorado law Lane could not be charged with murder.
"I believe you've lost the privilege to live in our society,"
Wilkins, who had named her unborn child Aurora, told Lane at
Friday's sentencing hearing.
In February, jurors convicted Lane of attempted murder, four counts
of felony assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy.
Judge Maria Berkenkotter called the 100-year sentence justified
because the crime was "brutal, shocking and cruel" and said it was
"miraculous" Wilkins survived.
Wilkins, 27, testified at trial that she went to Lane's home after
seeing a Craigslist ad for maternity and baby clothes. After talking
for about an hour, Lane bludgeoned her, slashed her with shards of
glass from a lava lamp, pummeled her with her fists and choked her
into unconsciousness, Wilkins said. She then cut out the fetus
with kitchen knives, according to trial testimony.
"You left me to die multiple times," Wilkins said in court on
Friday.
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Lane's court-appointed lawyers argued at the February trial that
Lane did not plan the attack in advance. But prosecutors said her
assault on Wilkins was part of a premeditated plot to steal a baby
and convince her husband it was theirs, after faking her own
pregnancy.
Lane's attorney, Kathryn Herold, told the court on Friday that years
ago Lane lost one of her three children, an 18-month-old son who
drowned. "It was clear this loss is something Ms. Lane never got
over," Herold said.
District Attorney Stan Garnett said he was not aware of any similar
attack in the United States on a pregnant woman in which the fetus
was ripped out and the woman survived.
(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Boulder, Colorado; Editing by Alex
Dobuzinskis and David Gregorio)
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