Advertisement

No murder charge in Craigslist case of baby cut from womb

By Amy R. Connolly

LONGMONT, Colo., March 27 (UPI) -- A former nurse's aide accused of cutting an unborn baby from a pregnant woman's womb will not face a murder charge, a Boulder County, Colorado prosecutor said.

Dynel Lane, 34, will likely face a charge of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and other charges stemming from the March 18 attack on Michelle Wilkins, who was seven months pregnant with a girl. Investigators said Lane placed a Craigslist ad selling baby clothes and used a knife to slice the baby out of Wilkins' uterus. Lane had reportedly told her family and others she was pregnant.

Advertisement

District Attorney Stan Garnett is expected to make the announcement regarding the charges Friday afternoon. The Boulder County coroner is also expected to release the findings from the autopsy on the fetus.

"The issue of whether or not murder charges are appropriate involving a case involving the death of a fetus or late-term pregnancy is always a difficult issue," he said last week.

"Under Colorado law, there's no way murder charges can be brought if it is not established that the fetus lived as a child outside the body of the mother for some period of time. I don't know the answer yet as to whether that could be established – what our facts are here. One of the issues that we will need to evaluate in connection with that is the medical information from the autopsy."

Advertisement

Police said Wilkins, 26, went to Lane's home in Longmont, about 35 miles north of Denver, to answer a Craigslist ad. She was immediately beaten, sliced open and left for dead in the basement. About two hours after the attack, Lane's husband, David Ridley, arrived home to take his wife to a prenatal appointment. Lane told her husband she had a miscarriage in the bathroom. Ridley found the baby in the bathtub, "gasping to breathe."

As Lane, Ridley and the baby arrived at the hospital, Wilkins was able to call 911 to report the attack. Police found her lying in a pool of blood with a small knife with a three-inch blade nearby.

The fetus died. Wilkins has been released from the hospital.

Police said Lane, a certified nurse's aide from 2010 to 2012, showed her two teenage daughters ultrasound images of a baby boy she said was hers in December. Police also found images of a pregnant-looking Lane on a phone. She had also reportedly told others she was pregnant.

A doctor who treated Wilkins at the hospital said her wound looked "well performed," and the person who took the baby "would have to have researched the subject of Caesarean birth in books or online to achieve the level of accuracy."

Advertisement

Doctors said the fetus had been viable.

Latest Headlines