German woman jailed for killing and keeping her two babies in a freezer for 10 and 14 years

A woman was jailed in Germany on Thursday for killing two of her newborn babies and keeping them in a freezer for 10 and 14 years.

The 46-year-old, known as Steffi S., was sentenced to nine and a half years by the court in Halle in central-eastern Germany for the wilful homicide of the children, a judiciary spokeswoman said.

The frozen bodies were discovered in January at the woman’s flat in Benndorf, a village of 2,000 people in eastern Germany, after her partner raised the alarm.

Following a hidden pregnancy, Steffi S. in 2004 gave birth in her bathtub to a healthy girl whom she immediately put in a plastic bag and placed – still alive – in her freezer, the newspaper Mitteldeutschland Zeitung reported.

She did the same thing four years later after giving birth to a healthy boy.

According to test results, both babies were born healthy.

The prosecution had requested a 10-year sentence for the woman, who also has two older children, while the defence had asked for six years. 

Steffi S. admitted the facts in the case, but claimed she had been overworked. 

“What I did is serious. I have to be punished for it”, the woman told the court, the Mitteldeutschland Zeitung reported.