There isn’t anything that isn’t disturbing about this:
German mother jailed for 15 years for killing eight newborns by Johannes FrewelThu Jun 1, 12:05 PM ET
A German court jailed a woman for 15 years for killing eight of her newborn babies in 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 woman who has borne a total of 13 children, of eight counts of manslaughter.
The case sparked soul-searching across Germany about a breakdown of social values in depressed areas of the former communist east.
The court found that Hilschenz, an unemployed dental hygienist with a long history of alcoholism, gave birth to the infants then left them to fend for themselves. Each probably died of hypothermia, the judges found.
Brandenburg state prosecutors, who demanded a life sentence for Hilschenz on murder charges, believe she killed a ninth baby in 1988 but the case expired under the statute of limitations.
The court stopped short of convicting her of murder but gave her the maximum penalty for manslaughter.
“Eight human beings were killed,” presiding judge Matthias Fuchs said, noting that babies had likely suffered more by freezing to death than if she had killed them by her own hand.
Dressed in a brown suit with her dark brown hair swept back in a bun, Hilschenz smiled wryly as the verdict was read.
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