Ex-Sorority Sister Sentenced to Life in Prison for Killing Newborn Baby

Weaver gave birth in the bathroom of her Delta Gamma Theta sorority house on April 22, 2015. Several sorority sisters testified at trial that rumors had circulated for months that Weaver was pregnant: She'd been seen to gain weight and often held a stuffed animal or pillow in front of her stomach, they said. After giving birth to a baby girl, Weaver wrapped the baby in a trash bag and left it outside the sorority house. Experts told the court that the baby was alive at birth and would have survived had it received proper medical care. Members of Weaver's sorority later found the trash bag outside and, ripping it open, saw the baby's remains.

Weaver's defense team had argued that Weaver did not know she was pregnant and plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but the judge ruled she was mentally fit to stand trial. Key evidence for the prosecution was the existence of text messages between Weaver and the father of her child. In them, she said the baby was "taken care of." After he asked her whether she'd "killed my kid," Weaver responded with: "You haven't cared this whole time and I really don't feel like talking about it."

The Zanesville Times Recorder reports that Muskingum County Common Pleas Judge Mark Fleegle said in sentencing comments that Weaver did "not show or verbalize any type of remorse." Judge Fleegle also criticized Weaver's attempts to induce a miscarriage while pregnant by taking pills, drinking alcohol, and falling on her stomach after a dodge ball tournament in the weeks leading up to the birth. Instead of protecting and nurturing her child like a mother, Judge Fleegle said, Weaver "tried over and over to take that baby's life."

Weaver initially claimed she didn't know she was pregnant, but admitted after questioning that she had known and had planned to get an abortion. Ohio has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the USA. Over half—54 per cent—of Ohio women live in counties without abortion clinics. Women wanting to obtain abortions must receive counseling with information that aims to deter them from the procedure, and abortion is not covered under state health plans unless the woman's life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

This is the second case of its kind to happen at Muskingum University. In 2003, Jennifer Bryant pleaded guilty to child involuntary manslaughter after discarding her baby boy in a blanket. She received a three-year sentence but was released after six months. Prosecutors in the Weaver case had argued that, under Ohio's Safe Haven law, Weaver could have left the baby with any hospital, police or fire station without fear of conviction. In comments reported by the Columbus Dispatch, the director of Children Services in Muskingum County acknowledged the department hadn't publicized the Safe Haven Law with as much vigor as they once had done.

"It's hard to see how anyone is served by this extreme punishment of a young woman who was apparently in absolute denial about her pregnancy," Clare Murphy from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service told Broadly. "The increasing restrictions on abortion in the state she lived in, and the demonization of those providing and needing those services, may also have deterred her from seeking help."

She added, "It is a marker of the kind of society we are whether we see these women as monsters who need locking up, or as individuals in desperate circumstances in need of some compassion and support."

Weaver's sorority sisters described her as "blank and unemotional" on the day of the birth. When asked by one why she hadn't told anyone about the baby, Weaver said she "didn't know."

Dr Sandra Wheatley is a psychologist with a particular expertise in neonaticide. "[The] whole situation could have been avoided if she'd had an abortion," she said. "While the Safe Haven law is all good and well, if someone is unable to cope with being pregnant and with giving up a new-born baby, that in itself is psychologically detrimental.

"It's tantamount to making an anorexic eat donuts. It's cruel."