Samantha Devlin delivers her allocution statement at Friday's sentencing hearing before Judge Anthony Donofrio.

YOUNGSTOWN — A New Middletown woman was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence, after the body of her stillborn son was found under the sink of her mobile home in June 2019.

Savannah M. Devlin, 34, of Struthers Road, had claimed she didn’t know she was pregnant.

She stood stoically as Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Anthony Donofrio said it was hard to believe that she didn’t know.

Donofrio said he considered the defense arguments for sanctions, but “community control sanctions would demean the seriousness of the offenses,” he said.

“It was very hard for me to believe that you didn’t know you were pregnant,” the judge told Devlin. “You had three other pregnancies, and it’s hard for me to believe you would not recognize the signs of being pregnant and labor.”

Devlin pleaded no contest to the charges on Feb. 16, but Donofrio said the fact that she told her mother she felt ashamed showed that she knew about the pregnancy.

Donofrio acknowledged it was a tough call for a prison term because the pre-sentence investigation showed the woman was at low risk for recidivism and was not violent.

The judge allowed the woman, who remained free on bond, to get her affairs in order during the weekend and allowed her to report to the Mahoning County jail at 9 a.m. Monday for transfer to the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville.

Investigators say Devlin went to a St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital emergency room on June 2, 2019, where an examination found that she still had a placenta in her body, but no sign of a baby.

Upon investigation, it was determined Devlin had delivered the baby at home some time earlier. After a search of her trailer, the body was found wrapped in towels in a cabinet under a bathroom sink.

Devlin had claimed she was taking birth control.

Assistant Prosecutor Caitlyn Andrews, however, said Devlin “knew she gave birth and lied about it.”

Defense attorney Bruce Williams said the defendant had lost 60 percent of her blood volume during the delivery, while Devlin claimed she was delirious and lost consciousness.

But she did say she covered the body because she didn’t want her other three sons who were at home at the time to see the baby.

Williams noted that doctors proved the baby was not alive as it moved through the birth canal, which is the reason Devlin did not face more serious charges.

During her statement, Devlin, who is manager of a pizza shop, said she mourned for the loss of her baby boy.

“It was the worst nightmare that I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” she told the judge. “I lost a baby. I lost a son… There’s not a day goes by that I wish that this didn’t happen.”

Speaking on her behalf was her twin brother, Joel Young of Poland, who said she is a good mother “who wouldn’t harm a fly.”

“She just wants to get back to the business of being a mother,” Young said about Devlin’s three other sons.

Delivering a victim impact statement was Devlin’s ex-husband, Anthony T. Devlin, who said his ex-wife “bold faced lied to me”

“Every day I have to relive this and go over the ‘what ifs’ each night,” he said. “She deserves to be punished.”

gvogrin@tribtoday.com