PLEASANT GROVE, Utah -- A Utah mom who admitted to killing six of her babies soon after giving birth was given a hefty prison sentence Monday. Megan Huntsman, 40, pleaded guilty in February to six counts of felony murder. She will spend at least 30 years in prison before she is eligible for parole.
"I really thought I had seen it all until this case," Judge Darold McDade said during sentencing on Monday.
Utah authorities were called to a Pleasant Grove residence a year ago after Huntsman's estranged husband, Darren West, found a baby wrapped in a plastic bag in the garage. Police eventually found the bodies of seven infants. Huntsman told police she strangled or suffocated at least six babies immediately after she gave birth to them between 1996 and 2006. The seventh, she said, was stillborn.
"Each baby was found wrapped in either a towel or a shirt, placed inside of a plastic bag, and each was contained in a separate cardboard box," a probable cause statement from last year said.
"It's been horrible for our department," Pleasant Gove police detective Dan Beckstrom told CNN affiliate KSL. "Some of the things officers saw in that garage, they can never unsee."
DNA testing showed West to be the father of all seven children. He said he wasn't aware of any of the pregnancies.
Huntsman blamed her actions on her addictions. First methamphetamine, a habit she said she kicked, then alcohol.
"Depression and alcohol took hold of me the same way drugs did," she said in a statement read by her attorney. "I cannot give a reasonable answer why I was capable of such a sick and heinous crime. I held my secret for 18 years."
