Court pronounces judgment - Multi-year prison sentence for mother after death of newborn baby
A young woman has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for killing her newborn baby. The Heilbronn District Court found the 27-year-old woman guilty of manslaughter, as the court clerk announced. The incident is reported to have occurred in Lauffen am Neckar in September of the previous year. The woman is said to have thrown the baby out of a window shortly after birth.
The girl died from severe head-brain injuries caused by the fall. The defendant admitted to the crime at the beginning of the trial in April. She could not explain the moment to the court. She claimed she had not realized she was pregnant.
The prosecution had accused the woman of murder with low motives. According to media reports, the Strafkammer did not follow this accusation because the evidence did not show a planned act and an unconditional intention to destroy. The judgment is not yet legally binding.
The woman, originating from Baden-Württemberg, will spend the next seven and a half years in prison, leaving her young children without their mother. Despite the severe crime, the court in Heilbronn only charged her with manslaughter due to insufficient evidence of a premeditated act. The defendant, a mother at a young age, struggled to come to terms with the realization of her pregnancy before the tragic event. Post-judgment, the woman awaits the final affirmation of the sentence before officially beginning her prison sentence.
