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Judge throws out confession in murder case

By: Associated Press//November 30, 2011//

Judge throws out confession in murder case

By: Associated Press//November 30, 2011//

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ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) – A judge has thrown out the confession of a northern Illinois woman charged in the 2004 death of an infant girl, ruling that police should have stopped their questioning when she asked for an attorney.

Katie Stockton, 31, of Rockton has pleaded not guilty in connection with the death of the infant, known as Baby Crystal. Police have said they have evidence Stockton was the infant’s mother. She is accused of leaving the baby to freeze to death on a roadside by her parents’ home.

Stockton gave the confession to two Winnebago County sheriff’s detectives in 2009, but a 67-page transcript and hour-long video show Stockton repeatedly telling the detectives she didn’t want to talk and wanted an attorney.

Judge John Truitt ruled that “the interrogation should have stopped” after Stockton said she didn’t want to cooperate, according to the Rockford Register Star.

“Everything from that point is tainted,” Truitt said. “They continued the interrogation, and that led to the defendant’s will being overborne.”

Prosecutors did not comment, and it was unclear if they planned to appeal.

Authorities also have said DNA testing found Rockton is likely the mother of two other infants found dead in the trunk of an impounded vehicle registered to her. The two infant skeletons were wrapped in cloth and stuffed in separate plastic bags. She is not charged in the infants’ deaths.

Police originally questioned Stockton in December 2004, after a newborn girl in a plastic bag was discovered frozen along a dead-end road near her parents’ home. Stockton, who was not living at home at the time, denied the child was hers and nobody knew whether she’d been pregnant, authorities said.

Information from: Rockford Register Star, http://www.rrstar.com

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