Mother gets 40 years in newborn's death

Erin Pendleton placed boy in bag in restroom at bar

By Sarah Langbein , Special to the Rocky

Published February 29, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Pendleton, 32, said, "I don't know why this happened."

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Two days after a newborn was discovered dead outside a Denver hospital, justice came Thursday for another baby left in the bathroom of a bar nearly four years ago.

His mother, Erin Pendleton, shook and cried Thursday as Denver District Court Judge Anne Mansfield sentenced her to the maximum time in prison - 40 years. She pleaded guilty in January to child abuse resulting in death.

"This was an infant who died here, and I can't ignore that," Mansfield said after listening to testimony about Pendleton's mental health issues, which various doctors said ranged from bipolar disorder to dissociative disorder.

The 32-year-old woman gave birth to baby Isaiah on June 25, 2004, in a bathroom stall at Legends bar and grill in Cherry Creek, where she had been drinking with friends. Pendleton placed her child, the placenta and umbilical cord inside a plastic bag, according to court documents. She sealed it with a knot, cutting off oxygen to her new son. A coroner's report indicated the healthy baby boy was crying when he took his last breath.

Then, according to prosecutors, Pendleton meticulously cleaned the bathroom stall, leaving nearly no evidence of the birth. Police found just four spots of blood the next day when the boy's body was discovered.

When Pendleton returned to the table where her two friends waited, she told them she had passed a kidney stone, according to court testimony. She went to a friend's home to change her bloodied clothing before going to another bar to drink.

Prosecutor Christine Washburn called Pendleton "selfish" and "self-centered."

The night before her son was born, Pendleton went on a binge, indulging in marijuana, cocaine and nitrous-oxide balloons.

Washburn asked that the judge sentence Pendleton to "every minute of 40 years in the Department of Corrections."

But before the judge did, Pendleton begged for forgiveness, specifically from her dead son. She apologized to the people who found Isaiah's lifeless body the morning after his birth.

She told the judge that she thinks about the boy every day and wonders what he'd look like.

"It breaks my heart to know there should be this wonderful little 3-year-old boy running around with us now," Pendleton said.

"I don't know why this happened or have an answer for you," she told the judge. "I'm not excusing myself for any of this."

But she pointed to her father's death from brain cancer, her need to self-medicate, depression and inability to cope with stress as factors behind her state of mind then.

"I just wanted to die because nothing felt like it was working out," she said.

Before Mansfield read the sentence, Pendleton sat down, turned to her weeping mother and mouthed, "I love you."

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Comments

February 29, 2008

12:55 a.m.

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happymike44 writes:

This poor woman will live with this for the rest of he life.With so many childless couple who want a child.Want a chance to love and care for child.Why have women who don't want a child not allowed this child a chance.Let it be adopted and then given a loving home.Also she was plainly a deeply disturbed women.Prison is never the answer for the mentally ill.This woman was clearly not in a right state of mind.Maybe a mental facility would be a better solution.What has happened to caring for those who are less then capable of taking care of themselves.
February 29, 2008

8:57 a.m.

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blacksho89 writes:

ANYONE who commits murder is mentally ill. Face it-well adjusted people do not do that kind of thing.
So does "society" then need to excuse all murders?

Nope. Prison is appropriate, both as punishment, and as protection for the rest of us. She will have no chance to commit infanticide again.
February 29, 2008

9:18 a.m.

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dadio161 writes:

somebody give her a butterknife so she can do the right thing.
February 29, 2008

10 a.m.

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soccer_mama writes:

I agree, anyone in their right mind wouldn't kill, especially a baby, a new born. For the babies sake, I pray that he is in a better place. Seeing how dear ol' mom was on a drug binge the day before his birth, I'm sure she was high/drunk the entire time she was pregnant. He probably didn't have a chance of a normal life anyway.
Once she gets caught, she is sad and "thinks about him everyday" why didn't she think about him the day she chose to put him in a bag and kill him? But now the judge and we are supposed to feel for her because she is "crazy"? She isn't crazy, she is a druggie, a looser, one of societies worst. She will fit right in where she is going.
February 29, 2008

11:06 a.m.

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wow writes:

What a horrible way to die...I can't imagine how a 40 year sentence could be considered justice, but if it was the best they could do...Gonna go hug my kiddos now.
February 29, 2008

12:34 p.m.

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MsValeriah writes:

Mental illness? Bullsh*t. This cold-hearted filth was partying during her pregnancy, out partying while she was in labor. She birthed him in the stall of a barroom john, then callously put her newborn son in a plastic bag and killed him. She then cleaned up to try and cover it up. Those are cold, calculated acts. I bet her current state of remorse is as phony as a three-dollar-bill. Sorry doesn't make it better, or change what she did. None of her excuses mitigate the horror of what she did to that poor baby boy. Forty years in prison isn't enough punishment for what she did. She should be put in a plastic bag herself and left to smother. Barring that, lethal injection would suffice.

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