A Colorado woman who smothered her unnamed newborn daughter then flung her over a fence into a neighbor’s backyard was convicted of murder on Aug. 27.
The disturbing case dates to the early morning of Jan. 2, 2018, when Camille Wasinger-Konrad, 25, gave birth in her bedroom to a baby girl, according to the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said she covered the baby’s mouth and nose to stop her from crying and keep her from waking anyone. She then carried the baby to the back deck and threw her into a neighbor’s backyard, the office said. The neighbor found the dead newborn at 9:48 p.m. that night and called police.
When police came to investigate, Wasinger-Konrad said that she woke up that morning with bad stomach cramps, and “the baby just came out,” according to Fox News affiliate KDVR.
“I just got rid of it,” she said in an interview recorded on a deputy’s body camera, KDVR reported.
A jury found Wasinger-Konrad guilty of first-degree murder of a child by a person in a position of trust, first-degree murder after deliberation, and tampering with physical evidence, the district attorney’s office said.
“This tiny baby was smothered by her mother, flung over a neighbor’s fence and left to die by the only human she had ever known,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Gallo said in closing arguments. “This defendant hurled her newborn 11 feet over an 8-foot fence, knowingly consigning her to her death. This little girl died in the cold without the dignity of even a name.”
Deputy District Attorney Valerie Brewster told the jury that the newborn was left there for a total of 948 minutes.
“This defendant went about her day, knowing her unnamed daughter was there, helpless. She thought and made that choice,” Brewster said, according to the district attorney’s office.
District Attorney George Brauchler said in a statement that the case was “disgusting.”
“Of all the many emotions of the magical first moments of a baby’s life, of all the many tender moments a mother shared in that first embrace with a completely helpless and fragile life, smothering a newborn and pitching its body over a fence in the cold of January is impossible to understand,” Brauchler said.
Wasinger-Konrad was represented in court by two attorneys from the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office. The office did not respond to an email and a call requesting comment.
She faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole, and the sentencing is set for Nov. 15.
