German woman jailed for killing her five newborn babies in the woods because she feared husband would leave her if she had any more

Mother sentenced to nine years in prison for killings



She turned herself in to police in Flensburg after giving DNA sample



Investigation began when newborn's body was found in 2006

A German court has convicted a woman of manslaughter and sentenced her to nine years in prison for killing five of her newborn babies.

The 29-year-old woman, whose name has not been released - in keeping with German privacy rules - turned herself in to authorities last September.

Prosecutors said then that she killed the infants shortly after giving birth in secret at home or in the woods, because she worried her husband would leave her if she had any more children.

Grim: Prosecutor Ulrike Stahlmann-Liebelt (pictured right, with Dirk Czarnetzki, of Flensburg police) said the woman was afraid her husband would leave her because he did not want more children

The state court in Flensburg, on Germany's border with Denmark, convicted her today of five counts of manslaughter, the DPA news agency reported.



Prosecutors had sought a 10-year sentence and the defense a seven-year term. The babies were born between 2006 and 2012. The woman has two living children.

She turned herself in after police took a DNA sample, and confessed to killing the children.

The case had been under investigation since a newborn baby's body was found in a paper-recycling plant near the city in 2006. A second body was found in a car park in 2007, according to the BBC.

Discoveries: The woman handed herself in to police in the town of Flensburg, Germany (pictured)

Three further bodies were found in the cellar of the woman's house.

Prosecutor Ulrike Stahlmann-Liebelt told a news conference in Flensburg in September that the woman was afraid her husband would leave her because he did not want any more children. He knew nothing of the five births, she said.

The case is one of a number of infanticides in Germany in recent years.