Killing Their Young
Legal Affairs, September/October 2004
The murder of a newborn by her mother is one of the most difficult
crimes to fathom; it's also one of the hardest to prosecute successfully.
by Dashka Slater
SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE DAWN ON AUGUST 21, 1990, Elizabeth Ehlert,
a 31-year-old mother of two, awakened her fiancé, Steven
King, and told him, "It's time." Ehlert had told King
that she was carrying a dead six- to eight-week-old fetus, and
that a couple of days earlier she had received an injection from
her doctor that would induce an abortion. As she moaned in pain,
King grew frightened and left the room. He paced around the three-bedroom
house in the middle-class Chicago suburb of Palatine, moving through
the hallway, the living room, the kitchen, and even the basement,
as he debated whether to call an ambulance.
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