"John" GARTRELL - Newborn - Detroit MI

A Detroit-area woman who put her live newborn in a trash bag and
left him in a garage has been sentenced to at least five years in
prison.Thirty-year-old
Veleeka Gartrell of Westland was sentenced Aug. 21 in Wayne County
Circuit Court to five to 15 years in prison. She had pleaded guilty but
mentally ill to first-degree child abuse.
Maria Miller,
spokeswoman for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, says Gartrell
will serve her sentence in a regular prison but will receive mental
health treatment.
Gartrell’s lawyers argued she did not
understand her actions after delivering the child in April 2007. Police
say her stepfather found the boy after hearing his cries.