I wonder if she is now (in interrogations) doubting that the baby was truly dead. This line of questioning would lead me to think maybe I was wrong, even tho I never felt a heartbeat, heard breathing, saw movement. But she held her for quite some time if I recall correctly, and a living baby would have had some reaction in that time.
I seriously doubt she purposely killed a living baby, the more I think through this. For me, it is burying the baby and keeping the birth/burial secret that is her crime.
ETA.... the only plausible explanation I can come up with if the baby was alive is that she "held her too tight" (against her own body perhaps, if we pay attention to her body signals during the questioning) and the baby was smothered. Tho she never says she heard any real signs of life after removing baby from toilet area.
To me it's way too coincidental that:
1. She was adamant she couldn't have a child when told she was pregnant;
2. She was smart enough and quick enough on her feet to lie and ask the doctor to fill a useless birth control prescription so her mom wouldn't find out she was pregnant;
3. She researched how to get rid of a baby:
4. She fits the profile of neonaticides 100%;
5. She did not contact the doctor for follow up appointments;
6. She was counseled about adoption but made no efforts to make a plan for the birth or what to do with the baby after;
7. She failed to call for help when giving birth;
8. She failed to call for help when supposedly discovering her child was stillborn.
9. She put her naked baby's body in a shallow pit -no blanket or even a towel;
10. She showed joy and relief "I'm happy!" And pride in her deflated stomach directly after giving birth to a supposed stillborn who she claims to have lovingly held and carefully named and put flowers on her grave.
11. She has an inperious, cold, controlling and punitive mother which is common with neonaticdes;
12. She admitted she did not want the baby to LE;
13. She made qualifying statements during interrogation about not meaning to hurt it. Not meaning to kill her baby;
14. She "squeezed" her baby, and;
She just happened to luck out and have a stillborn baby she never wanted and stated she could not have.
It's too much of a coincidence to me.
But I think the jury coming back with a finding of first degree murder is not going to happen. As I predicted the most she will be sentenced to is a couple years at best and do a few months time of that sentence. If anything.
While we don't need COD to prove murder when there's an alternate that is plausible, it becomes more important to the jury.
And the mother of Skylar is a catch-22. She is exactly the kind of mother that causes young women and girls to kill their newborns right after birth and conceal the pregnancy and birth.
But having that kind of mother will likely cause the jury to feel a lot of sympathy for her. It has for me.
She's good for the state but she is also a living breathing mitigator, IMO.