A Dutch court on Tuesday sentenced a 30-year-old woman who killed four of her own babies to three years in prison with additional mandatory psychiatric treatment. The woman, identified as Etta Alderen, was convicted of four counts of manslaughter.
In a period of five years she killed four of her new-born babies by drowning them after giving birth in the bath tub. According to the court she killed the infants because "she was afraid that her partner, whom she believed did not want to have children with her, would leave her. Also, she was afraid that doctors would take her children away from her".
The judges ruled that Alderen could not be held fully responsible for her actions as psychiatrists said she had a grave personality disorder. To treat this and because experts say there is a chance that she might repeat her behaviour, she has been ordered to undergo mandatory psychiatric treatment for an undetermined period after serving her sentence.
The children were all born between April 2000 and November 2005. The case came to light when the mother of the suspect found one of the babies' bodies in a plastic bag at her home. During a search of the house in Beverwijk near Amsterdam the police found another three bodies in a garbage container.
The father was acquitted Wednesday of being an accomplice to the killings. He has always denied that he knew his girlfriend was pregnant even though they lived together. During the trial the court heard testimony that Alderen did everything she could to hide her pregnancies. "Even her mother who saw her regularly and is a maternity nurse declared that she never noticed her daughter's pregnancies," the court remarked in its ruling.
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