German Mother Jailed for 15 Years for Killing Eight Newborns

[Guest Warwick Green]

A German court jailed a woman for 15 years on Thursday for killing eight of her newborn babies in what may be the worst case of infanticide in the country's criminal history.

The court in Frankfurt an der Oder on the Polish border convicted Sabine Hilschenz, a 40-year-old who has borne a total of 13 children, of eight counts of manslaughter in a case that sparked soul-searching about a breakdown of social values in depressed areas of former Communist East Germany.

The remains of the babies, buried in flowerpots, a fish tank and a baby's plastic bathtub, were found last summer in a shed owned by her parents in a small town on the Polish border.

The horror of the discovery left Germans baffled about how the almost unbroken series of pregnancies and deaths could have gone unnoticed so long....

Father says he had no knowledge of births

The accused gave birth to nine babies between 1988 and 1998, all of whom were found dead. She was charged with only eight counts of manslaughter however, because the death of the first baby fell under the statute of limitations stipulated by East German law.

The unemployed dental hygienist, described by psychiatrists as sane and "extremely bright," is believed to have had regular sexual intercourse without contraception with her husband, who has said he was unaware of the pregnancies and has not been charged....

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2040176,00.html

[sharkman]

She gets 15 years for killing 8 of her newborn kids. That's fair isn't it? I mean, they're only small, so killing them isn't as bad as killing a full grown adult, right?

I guess Canada doesn't have the patent on judges who are no longer capable of defending those who can't protect themselves.

[geoffrey]

It's less a crime here in Canada if you kill a kid in its first year as well. Infanticide it's called.

Pretty stupid if you ask me. Maybe there actually was a slippery slope from this pro-choice argument after all? You can kill a kid before birth with no consequence (you don't even have to pay for the procedure in a private, for profit clinic, where is the NDP when you need them!!!), now you can kill a kid afterwards and not even get 2 years per kid.

[PocketRocket]

How in hell Can the father not have known that she was pregnant???

No way.

If she came to full term, and gave birth???

Not a chance.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/110...ead_Babies.html

Hilschenz declined to testify at her trial, which opened in April, but previously told investigators that she was drunk when she went into labor and could not remember the births.

REALLY frickin' drunk, I'd say.

I don't buy it.

Before the trial began, the court reduced the charges from murder on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence she intended to hide her alleged crimes.

Ummmm.....hiding every one of the bodies is not "sufficient evidence"???

Her defense team argued she should be convicted of only one count of manslaughter and sentenced to 3 1/2 years, maintaining it could not be established conclusively that seven of the babies were born alive.

I don't buy this either, but at least there is some small iota of logic behind it.