Defense rests without testimony in trial of woman accused of cutting baby from woman’s womb

Update:

The defense in the Dynel Lane trial rested without testimony Friday morning.

The judge sent the jury home.

Jury instructions will be read Monday, with closing arguments scheduled for 9 a.m.

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Original Report:

A woman who had her baby cut from her womb by someone she just met says she told herself she had to survive for the sake of her unborn daughter and tried to fight back.

But Michelle Wilkins testified Wednesday that Dynel Lane continued to choke and beat her in the March 2015 attack.

Wilkins’ child didn’t survive. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

The trial opened Wednesday.

Wilkins says she went to Lane’s home in response to a Craigslist ad offering free maternity clothes. She says they chatted for more than an hour before Lane took her to the basement to look at baby clothes.

“She picked it up (the piece of glass) and smashed it over my head. That’s when I held up my hand and said I don’t know why you’re doing this, I love you. And she said if you love me, you’ll let me do this. Then she stabbed my neck,” Wilkins said during her testimony Wednesday.

Wilkins says Lane attacked her when she tried to leave.

“After she broke thebottle over my head and stabbed me, and she was trying to choke me,” Wilkins said. “I remember thinking of Aurora and felt like I wanted to survive for her.”

The defense argued in opening statements that the attack was not premeditated and that Lane never planned to kill Wilkins.

Lane’s boyfriend, David Ridley, also testified on the opening day of the trial.

Ridley told the court that Lane told him she was pregnant and sent him ultrasound images and photos of her distended belly.

Ridley went on to say that Lane’s due date kept shifting and she refused to see a doctor with him.

Ridley says Lane told him in April 2014 she was expecting a boy. But when 10 months passed and she hadn’t given birth, he told her he needed answers from a doctor about the baby or he would leave her.

He had planned to meet her for a pre-natal appointment the day of the attack. But when he came to pick her up, she told him she had delivered the baby at home. He says he found the baby in a bathtub.