A 31-year-old woman in Colorado will serve several decades in prison after strangling her 2-month-old son to death while suffering from postpartum psychosis.
On Wednesday, Boulder County District Court Judge Thomas Mulvahill sentenced Anna Louise Englund to 40 years in a state penitentiary facility for the 2023 murder of toddler Miles Basellio.
Englund had previously been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree murder of a child under the age of 12 by someone in a position of trust, both of which carry mandatory minimum penalties of life in prison with the possibility of parole. However, she agreed with prosecutors in the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office and agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder, with the more serious charges dropped.
The court rewarded Englund, who has been in detention since her arrest in June 2023, with 423 days served.
“This guilty plea and lengthy sentence is the right result in this very sad case,” District Attorney Michael Dougherty said in a statement. “It is painful to realize the enormous emotional toll on the baby’s father and family, as well as all of the police officers who desperately attempted to prevent this tragic murder. Our prosecution team worked tirelessly to ensure that this defendant received the appropriate conclusion, which was a substantial sentence in state prison.”
Laren Bennett, Englund’s defense attorney, said during Wednesday’s proceedings that the mental health treatment system “failed both Ms. Englund and her infant son,” according to the Daily Camera. Bennett noted that Englund “loved her son and family” and still “experiences a great sense of regret and remorse for what happened.”
Englund also spoke in court, outlining what she was going through in the weeks after giving birth to Miles.
“All I can remember is that I had strange auditory and visual hallucinations,” Englund reportedly stated. “I didn’t sleep, then I started to have violent visual hallucinations.”
Adding to the already tragic circumstances of the case, Englund told the court that she agreed to plead guilty and go to prison to ensure that she could no longer harm her husband, claiming that her time parenting Miles with him — before her hallucinations began — was the “best two months of her life,” according to the Daily Camera.
“He kept our son safe,” she reportedly stated. “He was really careful about leaving [Miles] with me. I convinced both him and myself that I was fine, but I was still in psychosis. I sincerely apologize for robbing him of fatherhood and leaving a void in his life.
As previously reported, on June 10, police arrived at Englund’s residence to do a welfare check on “a woman who was possibly having a mental health crisis.” Witnesses told police that Englund drove away with her infant son.
Prosecutors claim Englund waited until the child’s father “went to the bathroom,” then slipped out of the house with Miles and “drove to a location where she killed him.”
Englund’s whereabouts were unknown for several hours after an “attempt to locate” warning was issued, investigators said. Englund was discovered shortly after 10 p.m. that evening in the parking lot of Boulder Community Health Foothills Hospital. Miles was also in the vehicle and was transported to the emergency hospital, where he was admitted in critical condition. The medical team was unable to renew the youngster, who was pronounced dead at 10:48 p.m., police added.
She said authorities she had only driven a few streets from her house when she strangled Miles, explaining that she did so “because I didn’t want him to suffer in life like I have,” according to the Denver Post.
According to prosecutors, after killing her son, Englund “drove around” with the boy’s body “for several hours.”