Life for baby ripper
A BRONX woman who slit a pregnant friend’s throat and ripped her unborn child from her womb in a sick plot to kidnap the baby was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Wednesday.
Ashleigh Wade, 24, received her sentence with tears and mumbled words as she dropped her head in her hands.
“I just want to say I’m so, so sorry and no words can express how sorry I am. I can’t say it enough. I’m sorry,” Wade said.
“I wish I knew why, and I don’t, and I try so hard, and I’m so sorry.”
She was convicted last month of the second-degree murder of her friend Angelikque Sutton on Nov. 20, 2015, which was to have been Sutton’s wedding day.
Sutton, 22 and eight months preg- nant, stopped by Wade’s Bronx home on the way to her civil marriage ceremony.
Wade — who suffers from undiagnosed mental health issues, according to her defense lawyer — stabbed Sutton multiple times before slitting her throat and then carving the unborn baby girl from her uterus in a crude Caesarean section.
She intended to pass girl off as her own — and faked a pregnancy for months in advance of the crime, authorities said.
Miraculously, the baby girl — named Genesis — survived.
Bronx Judge Margaret Clancy, in announcing the prison sentence for Wade (photo), noted the trial testimony of experts who said Sutton’s killing “had to have been carefully planned and researched.”
It was not a crime of passion or impulse, as evidenced by the methodical way Wade carried it out, the experts said. Sutton’s family didn’t issue a response to the sentencing for murder and kidnapping. Wade’s relatives, who came all dressed in black and filled several pews, also remained silent.
Assistant District Attorney Meredith Holtzman said Wade had no remorse and “should never see the light of day again.” Defense attorney Amy Attias blasted the criminal justice system for failing to help those with undiagnosed mental illnesses. “(Wade) is not a monster. She is a terribly damaged — terribly damaged — human being,” Attias said.