Trial begins in baby-cut-from-womb case

Dynel Lane went to extreme lengths to show family and friends that she was expecting a baby. She shared ultrasound images with her daughter and kept photos on her mobile phone of herself seemingly pregnant.

She arranged to meet her husband for a pre-natal appointment the same day that prosecutors say she cut open the belly of a pregnant stranger and removed the woman’s unborn baby girl, passing the child off as her own, before admitting the March 18, 2015 attack.

Michelle Wilkins, who was eight months pregnant, survived, but the unborn baby did not.

Jurors yesterday heard opening statements in the gruesome case, which stunned the community of Longmont and reignited a highly charged debate about when a foetus can legally be considered a human being. District attorney Stan Garnett said he could not charge Lane, 35, with murder, because a coroner found no evidence the foetus lived outside the womb.

That roiled anti-abortion groups and prompted Colorado Republicans to introduce legislation that would have allowed prosecutors to file murder charges for killing a foetus, but Democrats rejected the measure. It was the third time such a proposal failed in Colorado, setting it apart from 38 states that have made the killing of a foetus a homicide.

Lane was charged, instead, with attempted first-degree murder, assault, and unlawful termination of a pregnancy, a criminal charge filed under a new law intended to be a compromise between opponents and supporters of abortion rights.

The maximum punishment under that provision is 32 years in prison.

Lane pleaded not guilty. Her attorneys said in court documents that they are not presenting a mental-health case during the 10-day trial, but may call witnesses who can testify about Lane’s behaviour the day of the attack.

Lane is accused of luring Wilkins, then 26, to a basement with a Craigslist ad for baby clothes. Prosecutors say she then attacked Wilkins, cut her with a broken piece of glass, and removed the baby using a kitchen knife. She did so with such precision that authorities initially wondered if she had knowledge of how to perform a Caesarian section.

When Lane’s husband came home early from work, to meet her for a prenatal appointment, he found the infant in a bathtub

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