A 25-year-old woman from South Zealand has been charged with killing her two newborn children, who died in 2023 and 2024, after prosecutors upgraded the case against her.
DR reports that the indictment covers two killings committed about 15 months apart. In both cases, the deaths are alleged to have occurred immediately after birth. The news agency Ritzau obtained access to the indictment.
The first child was born in September 2023 at a crisis center. According to the charge, the mother killed the baby immediately with violence and/or suffocation. She then placed the body in a freezer.
Prosecutors initially declined to bring a homicide charge in that case. Instead, the woman was charged with indecent handling of a corpse and later given a 30-day suspended prison sentence, as also reported by BT. She continues to deny killing the first child, according to her defense lawyer, Louise Traberg Smidt.
Second child born at home in December 2024
One year and three months later, in December 2024, the woman gave birth to a second child at her home in South Zealand. The indictment states that she placed a pillow over the baby’s airways immediately after birth and pressed down. The child may also have been subjected to violence to the head.
She then put the newborn in a plastic bag and placed it outdoors on a neighboring property, per the indictment. When she was arrested and brought before a judge in a preliminary hearing, she admitted killing the child. She did so under a milder provision than the general homicide paragraph.
That provision applies when a mother kills her child during or immediately after birth while in distress, out of fear of disgrace, or affected by weakness, confusion or bewilderment brought on by the birth. Her lawyer says she will continue to deny guilt under the more serious homicide provision at trial, while admitting the milder one in relation to the second child.
No trial date set
The court has not yet set dates for the trial. The woman was initially held in pretrial detention but has since been released. The prosecutor in the case, Susanne Bluhm, declined to say why the prosecution has now brought a homicide charge in the first case after dropping it earlier.
The prosecution is primarily seeking a manslaughter conviction in both cases, with a subsidiary charge under the milder homicide provision. It is not known what sentence the prosecutor will request. The indictment reserves the option of seeking a sanction other than punishment, which can cover placement in a closed forensic psychiatric ward.
