Woman admits leaving baby to freeze to death on rural road
ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) — An Illinois woman believed to be the mother of two infants found dead in the trunk of an impounded car admitted Thursday to leaving another baby girl to freeze to death along a rural roadside nearly five years earlier.
After reaching an agreement with prosecutors, Katie Stockton of Rockton pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the December 2004 death of the infant known as Baby Crystal, who authorities believe was Stockton's daughter.
Winnebago County State's Attorney Joe Bruscato agreed to drop other charges in the case, which had been set to go to trial Monday.
Neither Bruscato nor public defender David Doll commented after Thursday's hearing.
It was after Stockton's 2009 arrest in Baby Crystal's death that investigators discovered her car had been sitting in an impound lot for a year. They towed it to a Winnebago County Sheriff's Department facility to search for more clues in that case, and instead found the remains of two other infants wrapped in cloth and stuffed in separate plastic bags.
Authorities have said DNA testing found Stockton likely also was the mother of those two infants. She hasn't been charged in those deaths.
Stockton originally was questioned in Baby Crystal's death in 2004 after the newborn's frozen remains were discovered in a plastic bag along a dead-end road near her parents' home. Prosecutors said that when detectives interviewed Stockton hours after the discovery, she lifted her shirt and asked if she looked like she had just given birth.
Stockton refused to provide a DNA sample, but detectives investigating the death collected evidence from a cigarette butt they saw her discard. Authorities said saliva on the cigarette butt matched blood found on the clothing with Baby Crystal, and Stockton was arrested.
Bruscato said further tests showed Stockton was the baby's mother with a 99.96 percent certainty.
Stockton faces up to 60 years in prison when she's sentenced April 5.
After reaching an agreement with prosecutors, Katie Stockton of Rockton pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the December 2004 death of the infant known as Baby Crystal, who authorities believe was Stockton's daughter.
Winnebago County State's Attorney Joe Bruscato agreed to drop other charges in the case, which had been set to go to trial Monday.
Neither Bruscato nor public defender David Doll commented after Thursday's hearing.
It was after Stockton's 2009 arrest in Baby Crystal's death that investigators discovered her car had been sitting in an impound lot for a year. They towed it to a Winnebago County Sheriff's Department facility to search for more clues in that case, and instead found the remains of two other infants wrapped in cloth and stuffed in separate plastic bags.
Authorities have said DNA testing found Stockton likely also was the mother of those two infants. She hasn't been charged in those deaths.
Stockton originally was questioned in Baby Crystal's death in 2004 after the newborn's frozen remains were discovered in a plastic bag along a dead-end road near her parents' home. Prosecutors said that when detectives interviewed Stockton hours after the discovery, she lifted her shirt and asked if she looked like she had just given birth.
Stockton refused to provide a DNA sample, but detectives investigating the death collected evidence from a cigarette butt they saw her discard. Authorities said saliva on the cigarette butt matched blood found on the clothing with Baby Crystal, and Stockton was arrested.
Bruscato said further tests showed Stockton was the baby's mother with a 99.96 percent certainty.
Stockton faces up to 60 years in prison when she's sentenced April 5.
What the F*() is wrong with people? Three times she has done this. If this woman is ever to see the light of day can we please sterilize her? Clearly birth control, morning after pill, abortion, adoption, etc were to difficult for her.
why do so many americans have such excessively fat faces and necks these days? yeesh. have an apple instead of that big mac once in a while.
I'm tired of reading about these stories, it's damn near weekly.
If she didn't want these children, why not give them up for adoption? Or if there was a family member who would be willing to take them? She needs to be dumped into a trunk and left for dead. Women like this need sterilization! It makes me sad that there are women that are so selfish they can't think that their children would be better off alive and in the care of someone who can't have children of their own or want another addition to their already growing family.Â
Wait, wait now, I'm putting on my Margaret Sanger glasses. Ok.... They were not viable.  They were not wanted.   Just product of conception of knuckle draggers.  We'll argue that she has a 'right to privacy'; a decision between her and her ziplock supplier.  She caught it early - fourth trimester.
Against infanticide? Then don't do it.  How does her happiness affect your life?
Whoops. My bad. I mistook this for a story on encroachment by pro-life wackos.
I hope she serves every single one of those 60 years or even better, dies behind bars. That is one twisted, effed up person.
Scum like this does not deserve to live.
They better give her the maximum term. No one who does something like this deserves to breathe untainted air or feel the sun on their skin. She deserves the darkest, dampest, most close and suffocating hole in the rock that can be found.
Man, the guys that climbed that mountain had to be blind drunk.Â
I can't imagine leaving children to die in such a manner that can't be called anything but torture. Illinois still has the death penalty I believe, and she deserves to die.Â
@komoispropaganda Don't go to a strip club in DC, they are all big women. Unless your one of the blind drunk guys.
And what about the father(s)?
Wow. Guys like me could not have children and this evil monster kills hers. Wow.Â
Disgusting. Â We need to have a word besides "mother" to describe women like this, because they do not deserve the title.
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@the unvarnished truth @belsnickles You need serious therapies. About 60 years of therapies might do the trick.