Texas Mom 'Sorry' For Inflicting 'Intense Pain And Suffering' In Son's NH Murder
BRENTWOOD, N.H. (CBS/AP) — A Texas woman was sentenced Friday to 45 years in prison for suffocating her 6-year-old son in a New Hampshire motel room and leaving his body along a dirt road in Maine.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens reports
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Julianne McCrery, 42, of Irving, Texas, told prosecutors she had planned to kill herself and that she killed her son, Camden Hughes, because no one else was fit to raise him.
WBZ-TV's Jim Smith reports
But prosecutors say they have evidence McCrery felt the boy was an inconvenience, and that she planned to go about her own life after killing him.
McCrery spoke tearfully at her sentencing hearing, calling her son beautiful and brilliant.
"I am sorry to have caused the intense pain and suffering to my precious son Camden," she said.
"He did nothing whatsoever to deserve that by my hand, and he was not an inconvenience to me."
McCrery pleaded guilty in November to kneeling atop her son as he laid face-down on their motel room floor. She told investigators she covered his mouth with her hand as he struggled to survive.
On Friday, she said it has taken a while for her grief to fully unfold, but now it is "excruciating."
The discovery of Camden's body last May set off a nationwide effort to identify him. Meanwhile, McCrery called his elementary school in Texas daily to report him absent with appendicitis.
McCrery was arrested at a Massachusetts truck stop four days after Camden's body was discovered.
A motorist who happened by the remote area where Camden's body was found was able to describe a pickup truck she had seen with its doors open and a Navy insignia on its window.
When she was questioned at the truck stop, McCrery identified herself and told police she had killed her son at a Hampton motel and left his body under a green blanket by the side of the road.
McCrery's family members — including a son on leave from the Navy — attended the sentencing.
McCrery's former boyfriend Robert Miller told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 that he's happy she's behind bars, but thinks she should have faced the death penalty.
"She won't hurt any more children, but really, I think that people who kill children should be put to death. I couldn't say "except for her" she'd have to fall into the same category," said Miller.
Listen: Miller Talks To WBZ NewsRadio 1030
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Miller added that McCrery was mentally disturbed, but he has no idea why she would have committed such a horrible act.
"She was disturbed. I heard now that she's on medication and her mind is clearing up. I wish that would have happened earlier, but it never did."
WBZ-TV's Jim Smith reports
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