A mother in Utah who said she was helping her newborns by killing them was sentenced to up to life in prison, the maximum allowed, according to Associated Press, as reported by NBC News.
Megan Huntsman told the judge she gave birth to six babies — four girls and two boys — in the past decade and snuffed out life of each one “to help them avoid the terrible life I would have given them.”
Huntsman said she was weighed down by methamphetamine and alcohol addiction, an abusive marriage and overwhelming depression. The infants’ bodies were discovered last year by her estranged husband. He found them in a box in the garage.
“I honestly don’t know what caused me to do these terrible things,” Huntsman’s attorney Anthony Howell said on her behalf.
Huntsman, 40, pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree felony murder. She told prosecutors a seventh child was stillborn. Prosecutors agreed to recommend that the sentences run concurrently, but the judge said it was “not appropriate.” Instead she was ordered late Monday to serve three of the murder counts consecutively and the remaining concurrently.