A 28-year-old German woman, Katarina Jovanovic, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for the manslaughter of her newborn baby. The incident occurred in September of last year, when Jovanovic, who was a former executive in the legal department of Porsche, gave birth to the child in her home and then threw it out the window.
According to prosecutors, Jovanovic had kept her pregnancy a secret and was not prepared to abandon her life plans, including her professional advancement, for the child. The court heard that a passerby found the baby with a shattered skull in front of Jovanovic’s apartment building in Lauffen.
Prosecutors alleged that Jovanovic’s motive for killing the child was to protect her career, and that she had deliberately thrown the baby out the window to avoid the consequences of having a child. “The accused was not prepared to abandon their life plans, especially their professional advancement, for a child,” said prosecutor Mareike Hafendörfer.
However, Jovanovic’s defence team maintained that the incident was an accident, and that she had not planned to harm the child. Defence attorney Malte Hoech argued that Jovanovic was unaware of her pregnancy and was in a state of exceptional psychological distress when the baby was born.
“The accused did not even know that she was pregnant,” Hoech said. “When she suddenly held the bloody baby in her hands, she was in an exceptional psychological situation. It was an accident, she dropped the baby. How the child ended up over the windowsill remains to be determined.”
Despite the defence team’s claims, the court ultimately convicted Jovanovic of manslaughter, agreeing with prosecutors that she had committed the crime. The sentence, which was longer than the three years requested by the defence, was seen as a reflection of the severity of the crime and the harm caused to the child.
