A 50-year-old woman will spend at least the next eight years in prison for killing her newborn daughter and leaving her body in a river in 1992.
The Rock Hill Herald reports Stacy Rabon was sentenced to life in prison, but because the killing occurred in 1992, the judge had to follow sentencing guidelines from that year. Rabon was convicted Aug. 12 of homicide by child abuse in connection with her daughter’s death. The jury handed down the guilty verdict on what would have been the girl’s 31st birthday.
The little girl became known as “Baby Angel Hope.”
According to the Rock Hill Herald, sentencing for that charge in 1992 meant the possibility of parole after 10 years.
The number was decreased to eight because Rabon had been in custody for two years.
The child, who the 16th Circuit Solicitor’s Office said was “hours old,” was found “floating in the Catawba River inside a Sears shopping bag, stabbed to death.”
The Solicitor’s Office said, “Her killer remained a mystery for three decades until DNA finally revealed the identity of the mother that she tragically could not count on.”
The Rock Hill Herald reports Rabon had the baby in a van near the Catawba River and told officials she gave her up for adoption. The little girl also reportedly had cocaine in her system.
At her sentencing hearing, Rabon reportedly admitted she “made very poor choices when I was young,” but said she did it “because I cared.”
Judge Bill McKinnon said, “A newborn comes into this world looking for its parents to protect it. This baby was stabbed more than 50 times.”
