Mother fought back as foetus cut from womb in Colorado
A woman whose baby was cut from her womb told herself she had to survive for the sake of her unborn daughter and she tried to fight back.
But Michelle Wilkins said Dynel Lane continued to choke and beat her in the March 18, 2015 attack, and she lost consciousness.
When she came to, she said, she was bleeding profusely from her abdomen and she made a desperate 911 call.
Wilkins’ child didn’t survive. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault, and unlawful termination of a pregnancy.
The case revived debate over the legal rights of foetuses and brought calls for a murder charge, which prosecutors said they couldn’t file, because a coroner found no evidence the foetus survived outside the womb.
Wilkins testified she went to Lane’s home in response to a Craigslist ad offering free maternity clothes. She was almost eight months pregnant.
She and Lane chatted for an hour before Lane took her to the basement to look at baby clothes.
When she tried to leave, Wilkins said, Lane began hitting, pushing, and choking her. Lane then hit her over the head with a lava lamp.
“I just remember asking her why she was doing that,” Wilkins said.
She told Lane she loved her, hoping she would stop.
Lane replied, “If you love me, you’ll let me do this,”and stabbed her in the neck with broken glass.
In court, Wilkins glanced at Lane only briefly, when Garnett asked her to identify her attacker.
Lane had no visible reaction and sat with her eyes cast downward. She was expressionless throughout the day’s testimony.
In opening statements, defense attorney, Jennifer Beck, said Lane didn’t plan the “hasty, impulsive and reckless” attack and never intended to kill Wilkins, despite the bloody scene.
Garnett said Lane was obsessed with pregnancy and took elaborate measures to convince friends and family that she was expecting.
Her longtime boyfriend, David Ridley, testified that she sent him photos of herself with a distended belly, and claimed for more than a year that she was having a boy.
Lane’s friends even threw her a baby shower.
But Ridley said he grew suspicious when Lane’s due date kept changing and she refused to go with him to see a doctor.
She had told him, when they started dating, that she had had tubal ligation and could not get pregnant, so he was happy when she announced in April, 2014, that she was expecting a boy.
Ridley said he planned to take Lane to a pre-natal appointment the day of the attack, but arrived home to find her spattered with blood and a baby in his bathtub.
He said he picked the baby up and checked for signs of life.
At a hospital, Lane told doctors she had given birth at home, but refused treatment, crying “Save my baby.” An exam revealed no signs that she had been recently pregnant.
Powerful & heart-wrenching testimony from Michelle Wilkins describing her womb being cut open & her baby cut out pic.twitter.com/CT8qpjPSzD
— Heather Mills (@NewsieHeather) February 18, 2016
