A New Jersey woman, who pleaded guilty to setting her own newborn baby on fire and leaving the child to die in the street, has been sentenced to a 30-year prison sentence, court documents reveal.
In January of 2015, police arrested Pemberton Township woman Hyphernkemberly Dorvilier, 23, after they said she doused her baby with WD-40 oil and set her aflame. The child later died from the third degree burns she suffered during the incident.
Now after a year of court cases, a judge has sentenced Dorvilier to 30 years in prison for the offense.
“I was on a downward spiral. I believe I hit my rock bottom,” Dorvilier said before the court on Friday.
“I apologize first and foremost for not giving my daughter, Angelica, the life she deserved. She deserved so much better,” the convict concluded.
Judge Terrence Cook denied the woman’s plea for leniency and instead insisted that the 30-year sentence was “the sentence that justice requires.”
“The crime in this case was committed against the weakest of the weak, a helpless newborn,” Judge Cook said at the hearing.
“All she knew was the extreme excruciating pain of being set on fire by her mother, the person who was supposed to love and protect her,” Cook concluded.
In February, Dorvilier pleaded guilty to the grisly incident after spending much of last year insisting she didn’t do it.
In fact, a 911 call recorded during the incident features Dorvilier saying, “It’s not mine, it’s not mine… I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it.”
During her trial, prosecutors said Dorvilier had hidden her pregnancy from family members and decided to kill the child immediately after birth to continue the ruse. The body of the burned child was found with her umbilical cord and the placenta still attached.
Prosecutors had asked for the thirty-year sentence and the judge agreed to the full amount.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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