Minimum of 49 Years: Mother Who Killed Six Newborns Won’t go Before Parole Board Until 2064

Minimum of 49 Years: Mother Who Killed Six Newborns Won’t go Before Parole Board Until 2064

PROVO, UTAH- May 29, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) —Megan Huntsman, who killed six of her newborn babies from 1996-2006 while living in Provo, will not get her first chance in front of the parole board until she is 89 years old.

According to Jim Hatch, spokeperson for the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, the division has completed their administrative review and determined that Huntsman will not be seen by the Board of Pardons until 2064.

Huntsman, who pleaded guilty to murdering her newborn children faced the maximum sentence, five to life in prison for each of the six babies killed, reports the Herald Extra. 

Megan Huntsman, 40, pleaded guilty in February to six separate charges of murder. Judge Darold McDade ruled that 3/6 sentences will run concurrently to give the family some relief.

The tiny bodies of seven babies were found by Huntsman’s estranged husband, Darren West, in April 2014 while he cleaned out a garage in the home they had shared in Pleasant Grove. In addition to the six children Huntsman murdered, authorities said a seventh baby found in her garage was stillborn.

Huntsman told police she either strangled or suffocated the babies immediately after they were born between 1996 and 2006. She wrapped their bodies in a towel or a shirt, put them in plastic bags and then packed them inside shoeboxes in the garage.

DNA results revealed all seven newborns were full term and that West was the biological father of the infants. West lived with Huntsman during the decade the babies were killed, but he is not considered a suspect in their deaths.

Huntsman has yet to provide a motive for murdering her six children, though Buhman did note she was addicted to drugs at the time and she told officers she couldn’t afford to keep the children.

Huntsman also has three living daughters, between the ages of 13 and 20 years old.