“I kept asking her why she was doing that, I just kept saying, ‘Why?’ ” Ellie Wilkins said on the stand
NEED TO KNOW
- Ellie Wilkins testified against Dynel Lane nearly a year after Lane tried to murder her and cut out her 7-month-old fetus, Aurora, from her womb
- “I think it took everything she had, every bit of emotional and psychic energy and physical energy, to get in that courtroom,” the prosecutor tells PEOPLE
- What was “really challenging” was how “emotionally raw” she felt afterward, says Wilkins, who is now writing a memoir
Her voice shook not as much as it could have — though tears occasionally leaked from her eyes — as Ellie Wilkins took the stand in February 2016 and faced the woman who had tried to murder her and killed her 7-month-old fetus a year earlier.
It was a pivotal moment in the trial of 35-year-old Dynel Lane, who was convicted of assault, attempted murder and unlawful termination of a pregnancy and sentenced to 100 years in prison.
“I think it took everything she had, every bit of emotional and psychic energy and physical energy, to get in that courtroom and testify,” says former Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett, who prosecuted the case…