Ill. mom of frozen baby given 50-year sentence

ROCKFORD, Ill. A northern Illinois woman has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for leaving her newborn daughter to freeze to death in 2004.

Winnebago County Judge John Truitt on Friday handed down the sentence to 32-year-old Katie Stockton. The infant became known as Baby Crystal around the Rock River Valley after her frozen remains were found.

The Rockford Register Star reports Truitt allowed testimony about skeletal remains of two other infants found years later in the trunk of Stockton's car.

That testimony wouldn't have been allowed at trial. Stockton in February pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the infant's death.

Stockton hid her pregnancy and gave birth to the baby in secret in December 2004, then stuffed her into a shopping bag and left her along a roadway.