NEW YORK CITY — A New York woman was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after she killed her pregnant friend and then ripped the baby out of her body to claim it as her own.
It's a story so horrible that one of the jurors fainted upon seeing the evidence during trial, according to WPIX.
"I'm so, so sorry," Wade, 24 said, tears running down her cheeks so heavily that the court clerk handed her a stack of tissues. "No words can say how sorry I am," Wade continued, weeping. "I'm sorry for hurting so many people. I wish I knew why."
Her defense of extreme emotional disturbance had been rejected by the jury, which found her guilty last month of two counts of second-degree murder and one count of kidnapping in the horrific crime.
It happened almost exactly two years ago, on November 20, 2015.
That's when Sutton, 22, stopped by Wade's house, ostensibly to pick up a baby gift. It turned out to be a trap that Wade had premeditated. When Sutton dropped by, on her way to her wedding at the Bronx Courthouse, Wade stabbed Sutton 50 times, with the first set of slashes to Sutton's face and neck, slashing her victim's larynx so she couldn't scream.
When it was evident that Sutton could no longer fight back, Wade cut out Sutton's uterus and delivered the baby herself.
Ashleigh Wade had spent the nine months before the killing faking a pregnancy. She even set up a baby shower registry in her name.
Detectives arrested Wade shortly after the incident, from which the baby survived. The child is now a toddler, named Jenasis, and she was present at Wednesday's sentencing.
"Jenasis is a miracle baby," said State Supreme Court Justice Margaret Clancy. She called the killing "carefully planned and researched," and said that Wade "studied and planned how to kill and take the baby."
The child, a week shy of her second birthday, is clearly too young to understand what had happened in court. However, as both the judge and prosecutor Meredith Holtzman pointed out, Jenasis will always ask questions about her mother, who was a recent graduate of St. John's University, and was the daughter of a Protestant church bishop.
Furthermore, said Justice Clancy about the baby girl, "She will inevitably know that the day of her birth will be forever tainted" by the murder which had happened at the very same time.
Noting that, the judge said, she felt compelled to give Wade the maximum sentence.
"I impose a sentence of 25 years to life," Justice Clancy ruled, for each of the murder convictions. She also sentenced Ashleigh Wade to 15 years in prison for kidnapping, plus five years probation.
All of the sentences will be served concurrently, allowing Wade to go free by 2040, unless a parole board rules otherwise.
