Tuesday, February 29, 2000
Woman pleads in baby's death
Madden to get life sentence for murder
BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — Carin Madden, her eyes red from crying, pleaded guilty Mondayto killing her newborn daughter, who suffocated to death after Ms. Madden placed her in a plastic garbage bag and tied it shut.
Carin Madden pleaded guilty Monday in Butler County Common Pleas Court to aggravated murder and gross abuse of a corpse.
(Dick Swaim photo)
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A week before her jury trial was to begin, Ms. Madden pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and gross abuse of a corpse after the prosecution agreed not to seek the death penalty.
Judge Keith Spaeth of But ler County Common Pleas Court told Ms. Madden that he would sentence her March 23 to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Ms. Madden, 20, had been pondering a guilty plea for the past 10 days, said Craig Hedric, one of her attorneys.
“She knows now she has a chance to be free when she's 40 years old,” he said. “I never thought this was a death penalty case. She's not your typical person charged with aggravated murder.”
Ms. Madden said little during the plea hearing. She usually answered the judge's questions with a simple “yes” or “no.”
Ms. Madden, who lived in her parents' Wayne Township house, never told anyone she was pregnant and didn't even admit it to herself, said Don Moser, who is also her attorney.
“She completely blocked out the fact that she was pregnant,” he said. “That's why she didn't consider abortion or adoption. She denied to herself that she was pregnant.”
This is how Mr. Moser described the baby's birth and death:
Ms. Madden woke up with cramps one morning around Aug. 20. She went into the bathroom that was near her bedroom in the basement.
She sat on the toilet for an undetermined amount of time before she realized she was about to have a baby.
She spread out a few bath towels on the bathroom floor and gave birth.
Barely looking at the baby, she put it in a green garbage bag, pulled tightly on the yellow strings at the top and tied them.
Perhaps as long as several days later, Ms. Madden put the bag in a garbage can outside the house. On Aug. 28, a Rumpke garbage truck driver discovered the infant in the back of his truck and called police.
Later that day, Ms. Madden was arrested after being questioned by sheriff's deputies.
During the time that elapsed between the infant's murder and the discovery of her body, Ms. Madden continued convincing herself that the whole episode had never occurred, Mr. Moser said.
“For her, it was out of sight, out of mind,” he said. “She gave into the fantasy of separating herself from it.”
This was the second time Ms. Madden became pregnant without telling anyone.
When she was 15, she gave birth to a child at her home. Ms. Madden decided to put up the infant for adoption, and, four months later, juvenile court awarded permanent custody to a couple.
At the request of Ms. Madden's attorneys, Judge Spaeth will read reports from a mitigation expert and a psychologist who examined Ms. Madden.
The reports won't affect the sentence she receives, Mr. Moser said. But they might enable her to get into counseling programs in prison and could help her if laws pertaining to her case change, he said.
Her parents, Gary and Gail Madden, strongly opposed the plea agreement Monday.
After the hearing, Mr. Madden sat on a bench outside the courtroom, sobbing into his hands.
“There are so many bad kids out there,” he said, “and they're going to put a good kid away for the rest of her life.”
The Maddens don't deny that their daughter killed the infant, but they said she failed to receive counseling she badly needed after her first pregnancy.
They accused her attorneys of letting her down.
“It's the most unfair thing I've ever seen in my life,” Mr. Madden said. “They came in and made a political deal.”
But Mr. Hedric said the plea bargain was in Ms. Madden's best interests and that she made the decision to accept it.
“We never told Carin what to do,” he said. “It was her decision, not my decision nor her parents' decision. It's her life.”
If she had been convicted by a jury, the most lenient sentence she could have received was 25 years in prison, Mr. Hedric said.
The plea bargain offered her the chance to get out of prison five years sooner, he said.
Ms. Madden's lack of a prior criminal record and her initial cooperation with police prompted the prosecution to agree to a plea bargain, said Dan Gattermeyer, assistant prosecuting attorney.
“It's a very sad case,” he said. “A lot of people have trouble having a baby and want to adopt. She had a baby and killed her. That's very sad.”
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