The story of how a stranger cut open Michelle Wilkins’s belly and took her unborn baby is not easy to digest. After the traumatic and nightmarish ordeal, however, Michelle finally got the justice she and her baby deserve.
Her attacker Dynel Catrece Lane was recently sentenced sentenced to a 100-year prison sentence.
Boulder County District Court Judge Maria Berkenkotter said in the issuing ruling that Dynel’s crime was “brutal, shocking and cruel.”
“People are hungry to hear from you, Miss Lane,” she said. “Hungry, desperate to hear you express genuine remorse from the bottom of your heart.”
At the court ruling, Michelle faced Dynel again, the memory of the accident still fresh from her memory. Although willing to move forward, Michelle couldn’t help but be emotional at the hearing.
“It is clear that you need healing, and it is my sincere belief that you get it,” she told Dynel. “However, there were atrocities committed against me and my daughter that sent a ripple of pain out to so many others and they must be addressed.”
“You knowingly left me to die, multiple times,” Michelle also said. “The only tears you shed during the trial were those of self-pity.”
Michelle Wilkins shedding tears during a court testimony; Photo credit: Times Call
The attack took place in March the previous year, when Dynel lured Michelle into her house after posting a Craigslist ad selling maternity clothes.
Dynel tricked Michelle into going to the basement with her to look at the clothes. When Michelle turned to leave, Dynel hit her in the back with a lava lamp.
“I was very confused when it all started. I thought when she first hit me, was there a spider on me?” Michelle said of the incident.
“She grabbed me and pushed me deeper in the house…it had this nightmarish quality…she broke something over my head and liquid was pouring on me.”
Dynel used the shards of the shattered lava lamp to cut open Michelle’s stomach and extract her seven-month-old fetus.
“At some point after the attack, Lane’s partner returned home to find a baby in a bathtub,” a Washington Post report said. “He took the child and Lane to a hospital where she passed the fetus off as her own and asked staff to save it. It did not survive.”
The report also said that the 100-year sentence includes the maximum penalties for attempted murder and unlawful termination of a pregnancy.
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