The Deacon's Bench
A Colorado woman accused of luring an expectant mother to a basement and cutting the baby from her belly will not be charged with murder, prosecutors said Thursday night.
Catherine Olguin, a spokeswoman for the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors won’t bring the charge in the baby’s death. But she declined to say why or what charges Dynel Lane, 34, will face.
Investigators say Lane lured Michelle Wilkins, 26, to her Longmont home March 18 with an ad on Craigslist offering baby clothes. Inside, police say, Lane attacked Wilkins and extracted her unborn baby girl.
Lane’s husband found the infant in a bathtub and rushed the child to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Wilkins survived the attack and was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday.
District Attorney Stan Garnett is expected to release more information Friday about the decision not to charge Lane with murder, and the coroner’s office is expected to release the findings of an autopsy performed on the baby.
The gruesome attack revived the highly-charged debate over when a fetus can legally be considered a human being.
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