Michelle Wilkins On Dr. Phil Says She Told Attacker 'I Love You'
DENVER (CBS4) - The Longmont woman whose unborn child was cut out of her womb by an attacker told her story on the Dr. Phil show on Monday.
In her first interview, Michelle Wilkins recounted and relived her terrifying experience. Attack suspect Dynel Lane is to go on trial early next year. Wilkins said she had no idea what was happening.
"When she attacked me she hit my back very aggressive and hard and I said, 'Was there a spider on me?" Wilkins told Dr. Phil.
Wilkins was 34 weeks pregnant and said she had responded to a Craigslist ad for free maternity clothes. But at the home she says Lane struck her. She said she was hit with a lava lamp and stabbed with the broken end of it.
Barely conscious, Wilkins said she wasn't aware her baby girl she had named Aurora had been taken from her womb.
"I immediately thought about the possibility of escape and I wasn't aware Aurora had been removed," Wilkins said.
She managed to call for help on 911 and told the dispatcher, "I replied to her ad."
"What did she cut you with?" the operator asked.
"A knife ... I'm pregnant," Wilkins replied.
Lane is facing charges of attempted murder, assault and unlawful termination of pregnancy. She is being held in lieu of a $2 million bond.
The same day the interviewed aired, Lane's attorneys obtained a court order forbidding lawyers and police from talking about the case, but not Wilkins. In fact, First Amendment attorney Christopher Beall told CBS4's Rick Sallinger the order could not have stopped the Dr. Phil show interview.
"It probably could not have prevented an interview that someone had already given prior to the order being issued," Beall said.
In the interview Wilkins said she told her attacker she "loved her" as a form of defense.
"In turn she stabbed me and said, 'If you love me you'll let me do this,'" Wilkins told Dr. Phil.
CBS4's Rick Sallinger is a Peabody award winning reporter who has been with the station more than two decades doing hard news and investigative reporting. Follow him on Twitter @ricksallinger.
