Judge denies sentence appeal in hidden babies case

READING, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania woman who admitted hiding the bodies of five newborns in a closet has had her request for a lighter sentence denied.

The Reading Eagle reports a Berks County judge on Tuesday refused to reduce Michele Kalina’s 20- to 40-year sentence.

Kalina had been sentenced less than two weeks earlier after pleading guilty to one count of murder and five counts each of abuse of a corpse and concealing a child’s death.

The Reading woman said she conceived the babies during an affair and hid the pregnancies from her husband.

A defense psychiatrist testified that Kalina believed the babies were stillborn although she recalled one had moved before she hid it.

The Reading Eagle report said Kalina’s appeal claimed judicial bias, saying the court use “inflammatory” language.