Michigan couple, believing prayer would cure baby, gets at least 20 years for child's death
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A religious Michigan couple were each sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for the murder of their baby girl after they chose prayer over urgent medical care.
A jury found Joshua Piland, 44, and Rachel Piland, 38, guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse following a trial in March, ending an eight-year criminal case against the pair.
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On Wednesday, both were sentenced by a judge to 20 years to 45 years in prison for each charge, which will run concurrently.
“What you have done … has impacted multiple lives,” Judge James Jamo told Rachel Piland, as he read her sentence, reports the Lansing State Journal.
Jamo said there was absolutely no reason to believe that the couple would make better decisions in the future, “and that means there is a high risk and a need for protection of children.”
Baby Abigail was only 61 hours old when she died of a buildup of bilirubin, a treatable condition commonly known as jaundice, at the family’s Lansing home in February 2017.
Less than a day after her birth, a midwife and her assistant told the mother to get to a hospital for immediate treatment, but the couple declined.
Rebecca Kerr, Rachel Piland’s mother, also advised her to seek medical care for the newborn, but they refused again base on an extreme religious doctrine.
“We believed (praying) was the best thing we could possibly do for her,” Rachel Piland testified at the trial. “Even if she had died from some kind of struggle, we wouldn’t have called 911.”
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After the baby was dead, the parents and friends prayed over the lifeless body. Authorities were not immediately contacted to report her death.
It was only after a relative in California called police that officers responded to the house, about nine hours after Abigail died.
The couple lost custody of their surviving children, two of whom needed the same treatment as Abigail. The state took them away for life-saving medical care and they survived.
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