Friday, Feb. 1, 2018

CONWAY, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina woman was sentenced Thursday to more than two decades in prison for dumping her newborn daughter in an apartment trash bin.

A judge in Conway sentenced Shelby Taylor of Myrtle Beach to 25 years in prison, according to local media reports.

Taylor, who was 23 at the time, hid her pregnancy from her family and gave birth at home in 2015 while her husband and 16-month-old daughter were asleep. She then put the baby girl in a trash bag and left her in a trash bin at their apartment complex.

The baby was found by two brothers and survived. Taylor turned herself in to police after seeing her own photo on the evening news.

A jury had deliberated for just over an hour before finding Taylor guilty of attempted murder. Defense attorneys, who did not deny the basic facts of the case against their client, argued that Taylor suffered from a severe form of postpartum depression and was afraid of her husband, leading her to hide her pregnancy from family.

Prosecutors said Taylor intentionally deceived everyone and intended to kill her baby. During the trial, prosecutors played a recording in which Taylor denied to police that she had been pregnant and said she wouldn't have hidden something of that magnitude from her husband or family.

"I wouldn't do this," Taylor says in the recording. "I'm not that type of person. I wouldn't do this. I'm a good person."