Desertion of infants baffles judge
Superior Court Judge Sam Cozza was at a loss for words Friday when he sentenced Stacey Lynn Jones for abandoning three newborn babies, one of whom died.
Jones, 38, pleaded guilty in January to second-degree manslaughter and two counts of second-degree child abandonment.
In September 2001, Jones left her 2-day-old baby in a box on the porch of a neighbor’s home in the Shiloh Hills neighborhood of north Spokane. Police were unable to find the mother, and the baby girl was adopted.
Two years later, in September 2003, Jones gave birth to twin sons and abandoned them in the same way. One of them died, perhaps suffocated by the other when Jones put them both in the same box.
Jones was married at the time, and said she didn’t want her estranged husband to know she had borne another man’s children.
Detectives caught Jones after the second abandonment by tracing the box to her workplace.
Cozza told Jones he could “almost, almost understand” a 13-year-old girl abandoning a baby after an unexpected pregnancy, “but you’re a woman in your 30s.”
A woman of her experience, who already was raising three children, could be expected to find a better way to deal with unwanted pregnancies, Cozza said.
“There’s probably a hundred other options you could have done,” including leaving the babies at a fire station, Cozza said.
What’s worse, “it happened not once, but twice,” the bewildered judge added. “I don’t know.”
In a brief statement before Cozza handed down a midrange three-year prison sentence, Jones said she was sorry and prepared to accept whatever punishment Cozza imposed.
A psychological evaluation, cited by Assistant Public Defender Mark Hannibal, said Jones suffered from depression and a “dependent personality,” but Cozza said that wasn’t enough to justify a below-standard sentence.
On the other hand, he said the facts didn’t justify an above-standard sentence. Deputy Prosecutor Ed Hay asked only for a standard-range sentence, anyway.
Cozza ordered Jones to report to the county jail April 15, after another court hearing to determine custody of her remaining children. The father of the abandoned children is seeking custody of the surviving twin, and Jones’ ex-husband, Les Jones, is seeking custody of their son and two daughters, ages 7 to 15.