Five
Infants Born to Michele Kalina
Dates
Of Birth And Death - Unknown
On
August 4, 2011, Michele Kalina, who was 45 years old, was sentenced to
between 20 and 40 years in prison. What lead to her arrest was her husband
and daughter finding the
remains of five baby skeletons that were being kept in containers in a closet in their
home. The remains were
estimated to be between 32 weeks up to the age of newborns.
Michele plead guilty to
killing only one of the babies. Michele was
carrying the babies of her boyfriend and each pregnancy was the result of an affair she
was having with him. While
Michele says that she thought at least four of the babies were stillborn, that leaves
the one that she admits to
killing. Wrapping their tiny bodies in towels, she put them into the closet. The third child,
which is the one she was charged
with killing, had moved after she put him in the closet. She said she wrapped that
baby up very tightly in a towel.
This baby was then encased in cement and put in the closet with the other, that
baby had been a boy:
"It
was a very bizarre
case. There were five skeletal remains, but because of the condition
of
those skeletal remains it was very difficult to determine a cause of
death. But we had
enough
information to charge her with one body"
Berks
County District Attorney - John Adams
Michele, who
was a home health nurse
(pretty scary huh?), says that both her husband and her boyfriend were
not aware of her being
pregnant. In October 2003, she had given birth to a
child and given it up for adoption. Michele is lucky to have a supportive husband who
says that he still loves her and
has plans to stay with her. In court, he gave testimony to the fact that she and he had
stopped being intimate with
each other in 1992.
When Michele would
become pregnant, she would tell her boyfriend that
she had a cyst and he told police that the cyst came back two or three times:
"Our investigation
revealed that she hid the pregnancies and births from everyone.
Unfortunately, there are many questions that only Ms Kalina can answer"
John Adams
Michele's husband and
daughter, who found
the babies, had been told not to go into her closet, which she kept
locked at all times. Police said that they had been intending to clean
out the closet when they found the skeletal remains of the babies.
Of course the defense for Michele tried to say that she was mentally
ill due to having been abused mentally and sexually as a child. A
Psychiatrist testified at her trial that she
remembers very little about the births of the babies:
"She shows no emotion.
It's like she's talking about someone else"
Dr Jerome Gottlieb
Dr. Gottlieb said that
Michele was an
alcoholic who had been drunk during the birth of each of the children
and can't remember the exact details of any of them. Dr. Gottlieb also
stated
that
Michele was suffering from depression and other mental problems. YA
THINK? Holly Feeney, the Public Defender who
represented Michele asked for the court to be lenient on Michele
stating she had learned to ignore
reality as a result of the abuse she suffered as a child. Dr. Gottlieb
said that he felt Michele put the memories
associated with the births of the babies into a sort of "psychological
closet", like the real one she put their bodies into.
THANKFULLY, Lina
K.M Ludgate, the Judge, didn't buy the their argument saying that
Michele had left the babies in tubs and containers "like garbage" and
had this to say:
"After the first time
she gave birth in a bathtub and wrapped the baby and put the baby in a
container, she could have stopped and asked for help, but she did not.
She got pregnant and
gave birth again and again and again and again"
Also at the trial was
Michele's 19 year
old daughter who told the court that Michele ws a good mother. Michele
had also given birth to a son with Cerebral Palsy who died when he was
13
years old, of natural causes. Michele cried as she told the Judge that
she has nightmares about these babies:
"I cry for the babies
and nothing I can do can bring them back. I am very upset and ashamed
about what happened"
Dr. Gottleib
said that Michele is on several anti-depressent medications and will
most likely attempt suicide as she remembers what happened over time.
In court, Jeffrey Kalina, who is
disabled and stays at home, said that he had not seen his wife naked
for 18 years so he would not have noticed that
she was pregnant at all. He said she was always thin. Jeffrey also said
that had he known about the pregnancies,
he would have raised the children as his own. He stated that there had
been one time in the year 2003 when he
thought Michelle might have been pregnant, but his daughter didn't
believe it, though that was the baby she gave
up for adoption. Michele told the staff at the hospital that she was
separated.
Dr. Gottlieb testified that Michele had kept the babies in the closet
as as reminder to her of the shame of having an affair and of their
deaths saying that she had looked at the remains of
the first baby at least one time and had become very upset about them:
"This woman's very ill.
If she were just trying to get rid of them as an inconvenience, she
would not have left the remains in a closet. I think we can all agree
that's bizarre"
Assistant District
Attorney, M. Theresa Johson said that things could have gone
differently and they might have been able to learn exactly how these
babies had died, if they had been
discovered in time. She added that Michele wasn't afraid at all, she was "brazen".
Michele had given birth to
these babies in a bathtub at home, while other people were there.
Michele was found guilty
of abusing a corpse and failing to report the
death of a child as well as five counts of
abuse to a corpse and
concealing a childs death.
In August of 2011, less
than two weeks after being sentenced, Michele
was in court asking for a lighter sentence for what she had done. The
Judge denied her request which was based on the fact that her Defense
was claiming bias claming the court has used "inflammatory" language.
For information
about preventing
child abuse in the state of Pennsylvania, click the links below. If
they
can't
help you, ask for someone who can. NEVER give up looking for
help
for an abused child!
|
