Johannesburg - Loretta Cook could have adopted a baby if she wanted one.
However, she lured a highly pregnant Valencia Behrens to her house, cut her stomach open to steal her baby and later treated her “like rubbish” by dumping her outside and moving the dustbin nearer the kitchen door to put her in it.
So said Judge Lucy Mailula at the South Gauteng High Court sitting in Palm Ridge on Friday when she sentenced the 32-year-old woman to life imprisonment for the murder of Behrens.
A few hours earlier, Cook had burst into tears after she was convicted of murder. But when Judge Mailula said she would spend the rest of her life behind bars, she showed no emotion, staring ahead.
On January 6, 2012, Cook met Behrens on a street in Toekomsrus. She told the 35-year-old woman to come to her house later to fetch a pram and baby clothes. Behrens went to Cook’s house but did not come out alive.
Cook sliced open her stomach with a blade and took out the baby. With her stomach gaping, Behrens bled to death.
Cook later left the baby she had taken from Behrens’ womb lying face down in a pool of blood on the floor, the umbilical cord still attached to the uterus.
Cook was arrested but she pleaded not guilty, saying she had no recollection of the moments when Behrens died.
On Friday, Judge Mailula said amnesia was not a defence and that Cook had been examined by psychologists who said there was no evidence of mental illness and that she was fit to stand trial.
The judge also said Cook had throughout the trial not shown any remorse but kept insisting that she was innocent.
Before Behrens’s killing, Cook had been faking a pregnancy and searched medical sites on the internet. She created false doctors’ documents stating she was pregnant.
The judge said an aggravating factor was that the killing was premeditated and that Cook chose Behrens as a victim and lured her to where she “callously” killed her.
“It’s not clear if Behrens was anaesthetised but she must have been in extreme pain to have her stomach cut and her womb removed. She was dumped outside and the bin moved nearer the kitchen, obviously to put her inside… she was treated like rubbish.
“It is clear from the evidence that Cook was excited at the prospect of being a mother, because to her it was an achievement and to also gain a particular status in the community. But she was under no pressure from anyone to have a baby.
“It would have been easier to go the adoption route than kill Behrens in such an horrendous way.”
The State had also charged Cook with the attempted murder of the Behrens’ child, who later survived.
However, Judge Mailula said it was clear that Cook wanted to get the baby alive and pass it off as her own and that it could not be said that she wanted to kill it.
Saturday Star