Woman admits to killing her kids will serve at least 37 years

by Tom Bosco

Tue, November 19th 2019, 11:48 PM UTC

An Ohio woman accused of suffocating her three sons out of jealousy at the attention her husband gave them has pleaded guilty in the boys' deaths and been sentenced to 37 years in prison. Prosecutors say 27-year-old Brittany Pilkington confessed to the killings of two infants and a 4-year-old son. They died separately between July 2014 and August 2015. (WDTN)

{p}An Ohio woman accused of suffocating her three sons out of jealousy at the attention her husband gave them has pleaded guilty in the boys' deaths and been sentenced to 37 years in prison. Prosecutors say 27-year-old Brittany Pilkington confessed to the killings of two infants and a 4-year-old son. They died separately between July 2014 and August 2015. (WDTN){/p}{p}{/p}

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An Ohio woman accused of suffocating her three sons out of jealousy at the attention her husband gave them has pleaded guilty in the boys' deaths and been sentenced to 37 years in prison. Prosecutors say 27-year-old Brittany Pilkington confessed to the killings of two infants and a 4-year-old son. They died separately between July 2014 and August 2015. (WDTN)

BELLFONTAINE, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) — A case that took four years to wind through the court system came to an abrupt end today when a Logan County woman admitted she killed her three sons over the course of 13 months. Brittany Pilkington pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and one count of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 37 years-to-life in prison.

Pilkington was 23 when she was arrested. She’s 27 now and won’t even be considered for parole until she’s in her early 60s.

Her infant Niall died in July of 2014. Gavin, five, died in April of 2015. Another infant, Noah, died just four months later. After the third death, prosecutors accused her of smothering the children. She confessed that to detectives after a long night of questioning, but part of the confession was thrown out.

Pilkington avoids the death penalty with the plea. Defense attorneys said they knew from the start the death penalty would be the wrong outcome here, and said they recently got medical evidence that Pilkington has brain damage. That’s in part, they said, to lead poisoning as a baby, and in part to sexual and physical abuse.

That abuse came at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend, Joe Pilkington, who later married Brittany.

“She had a monster in her life, from the age of 9,” said Kort Gatterdam, one of her defense attorneys. “Being shown pornography, being raped, being raped repeatedly.”

Joe Pilkington was convicted of sexual battery and has already served his sentence during the time that Brittany Pilkington has languished in jail awaiting outcome of her court procedures.

Prosecutors agreed to the sentence recommendation and admitted their own experts were against the death penalty.

“The state’s own expert had given us some information that they didn’t believe she qualified for the death penalty,” said Eric Stewart, Logan County Prosecutor.

Brittany has a daughter, now about eight years old, being raised by a foster family. Her caretaker in court read a statement that said in part, when the little girl gets scared she talks to herself and says her brothers are always with her.

Will Brittany ever be allowed to see her daughter?

“That’s going to be up to her daughter,” Gatterdam said. “Obviously her daughter is very young, she would hope someday that her daughter as she said in her statement would forgive her.”

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