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Mother Who Fatally Sealed Baby In Plastic Bag Loses Appeal Over Murder Conviction

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Briana McCoy Contributor
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A mother in England has lost her appeal after she was convicted for murdering her newborn child in April 2017, according to The Independent.

After hiding her pregnancy from family and friends, Hannah Cobley, 31, gave birth to a premature baby girl on her family’s Leicestershire, England farm, according to The Independent. Cobley forced something down the throat of the infant and left her outside, sealed in three plastic bags after assaulting her. 

An autopsy of the baby uncovered three skull fractures and revealed the child was still alive for two hours before passing. Furthermore, Cobley had searched on the internet phrases including, “what happens if you drop a newborn baby” and “how long can a newborn baby last without milk and in the freezing cold.” (RELATED: Mother-Daughter Team Charged With Killing Newborn)

In the 2019 trial, Cobley was found guilty of murder and sentenced to at least 18 years in prison. One psychiatrist claims Cobley was suffering from a severe depressive episode at the time of the murder whereas another psychiatrist withdrew his testimony defending Cobley after seeing evidence stating he “no longer believed that her mental functioning had been sufficiently disturbed as to explain her actions”, The Independent reported.

“The internet searches and contemporaneous accounts and conversations do not support the proposition that she was delusional or that the fatal event was spontaneous,” stated Lady Justice Macur, one of the judges assigned to the hearing, according to The Independent.