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Baby cut from womb: Defense calls no witnesses

Prosecution may rest case Friday.2.19.16 5 a.m.
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Closing arguments in the case against the woman accused of attacking a pregnant Longmont woman and cutting the unborn baby from her womb are expected Monday.

The defense rested its case Friday without calling a single witness. 

Dynel Lane is a former nurse's aide accused of luring a pregnant woman to her home with a Craigslist ad for maternity clothes.

Michelle Wilkins was seven months pregnant when she saw the ad and went to Lane's house on March 18, 2015.

The district attorney says Lane hit Wilkins over the head with a lava lamp and stabbed Wilkins in the neck with the broken glass.

Lane then cut Wilkins' abdomen, took the unborn baby and left Wilkins for dead, prosecutors say.

On Wednesday, the start of the trial, Wilkins testified and described the excruciating horror she experienced. Thursday's testimony focused on the doctors at Longmont United Hospital, and highlight how the suspect and the victim were treated in the same hospital at the same time, both without knowing it.

MORE | BLOG FROM COURT - Day 2 of Dynel Lane trial

MORE | BLOG FROM COURT - Day 1 of Dynel Lane trial

Lane is charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

Because live streaming video is not allowed, we have recounted what occurred in the courtroom on Friday.

BLOG FROM COURT: Day 3 of Dynel Lane trial:

"Right now you are considered in custody, we've had an officer with you for a couple hours now," an officer said on the recording. Then the officer reads Lane her Miranda rights.

The detective asked Lane about what happened when Wilkins came to her house.

Lane told police Wilkins had come to sell her baby clothes, not the other way around, as Wilkins testified.

"We talked for a long time... we talked about my kids and we talked about just anything. I don't know. I don't really get to talk to anybody during the day so it was kind of nice," Lane answered.

Lane said they were looking at baby clothes in the basement when Wilkins suddenly attacked her.

"Before I knew it, she had, I think it was a knife that I had opened my box with, and it was sitting on the counter... she came at me and I just kind of reacted. We ended up in my daughter's room and she kept trying to hit me. I asked her, 'What are you doing?' I'm like, 'Stop!' I didn't have my phone with me so I felt completely... I don't even know after that. And then, I was just defending myself," Lane told police.

"I had finally gotten to the point where I had her down and I'm like, 'Just stop.' And she was just flailing. I don't even know," Lane continued. "But she wouldn't stop."

"She kept trying to punch me. She was like trying to bite me," Lane said.

"What happened next?" the detective asked.

"I think I choked her," Lane answered. "It was a big struggle. I was yelling. I was trying to maybe get my neighbor to hear me."

"I strangled her because she wouldn't stop," Lane said, crying. "It wasn't long after that that my husband came home."

"What were you thinking about with the baby?" the detective asked.

"I thought I killed her. I was like, 'I killed this woman,'" Lane said. "They always tell you not to do things by yourself off Craigslist but it was a pregnant woman, I didn't think anything of it."

"I thought I killed her and I didn't want the baby to die, too," Lane continued. "What do you do in a situation like that? I just reacted."

"What happened to the baby?" a detective asked.

"I had the knife that she had. And I tried to get the baby out," Lane said, crying.

Lane said she took the baby upstairs to a bathroom and then went back downstairs to look for her cell phone. That's when Lane's husband came home.

"I went back downstairs to find my phone and the girl was moaning and crying. No she wasn't crying, she was just making breathing sounds. And I got scared."

"This was the lady in the basement?" a detective asks.

"I know I should've said something then, but I didn't. I just got scared. I just left her there," Lane said, still crying.

That's when Lane said she told her husband about the baby in the empty bathtub upstairs.

"Whose baby did he think it was?" the male detective asked.

"Ours," Lane answered.

"Are you pregnant? Did he think you'd been pregnant?" the male detective asked.

"I wanted to tell him so bad. I was pregnant, I was pregnant," Lane said.

"When were you pregnant?" the female detective asked.

"Last year," Lane answered. "I didn't go to the doctor and I didn't tell him that I lost the baby."

"What was your plan?" the female detective asked.

"I was going to tell him so many times and he asked me, you know, what was going on, everybody's confused," Lane said.

"What were they confused about?" the female detective asked.

"Why it was taking so long," Lane said. "I'm not afraid of him, I just didn't want to hurt him."

After playing the recorded interview with detectives, the prosecution rested their case.

The defense rested their case without calling any witnesses.

The jury was sent home and will return Monday morning to hear instructions.

MORE | BLOG FROM COURT - Day 2 of Dynel Lane trial

MORE | BLOG FROM COURT - Day 1 of Dynel Lane trial

The lawyers debated those instructions after the jury was dismissed. Court was recessed before 1 p.m. on Friday.

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