Suspended sentence for Alberta woman convicted of infanticide
Katrina Effert, the Westakiwin, Alta. woman convicted of infanticide for killing her newborn son, was given a three-year suspended sentence Friday by an Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench judge.
The young woman was 19 years old on April 13, 2005, when she secretly gave birth in her parents' home, strangled the baby boy with her underwear and threw the body over a fence into a neighbour's yard.
She wept as Justice Joanne Veit reviewed the reasons for the suspended sentence.
Two years ago, for the second time, a jury found Effert guilty of second-degree murder, but last May the province's highest court decided the jury made a mistake.
In a rare move, the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned the conviction, replacing it with the lesser one of infanticide.
The appeal court said Effert should have been given the benefit of the doubt based on psychiatric evidence.
