No Lighter Sentence for Baby Killer: Judge

The Reading woman who admitted hiding the bodies of five newborns in a closet has had her request for a lighter sentence denied.

A Berks County judge on Tuesday refused to reduce Michele Kalina's 20- to 40-year sentence, reports the Reading Eagle.

Kalina had been sentenced less than two weeks earlier after pleading guilty to one count of murder and five counts each of abuse of a corpse and concealing a child's death.

Kalina was arrested in August 2010 after her husband and daughter discovered the remains in summer coolers and a cement-filled container in a closet of the family apartment .

The 45-year-old Reading woman said she conceived the babies during an affair and hid the pregnancies from her husband.

A defense psychiatrist testified that Kalina believed the babies were stillborn although she recalled one had moved before she hid it.

"The sentence focused more heavily on the serious nature of the offense rather than on the specific rehabilitative needs of Ms. Kalina," Assistant Public Defender Holly B. Feeney wrote in her request for a lighter sentence.

The Reading Eagle report said Kalina's appeal claimed judicial bias, saying the court use “inflammatory” language.

“This court showed obvious bias against the defendant by using inflammatory language about her crime, speaking of her treating the deceased infant like garbage,” Feeney said according to the Reading Eagle.