The 33 year old was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing a fetus and child neglect.
Patel was arrested after delivering a stillborn baby and throw the body in a dumpster. This case is the first time a woman has been convicted of feticide for ending her own pregnancy.
In 2013, Patel went to the St. Joseph Regional Medical Center emergency room in Mishawaka, because she was bleeding profusely.
She was on Monday sentenced to 30 years in prison with 20 years executed, 10 suspended, charged with neglect of a dependent. She will also serve five years probation.
For the foeticide charge, she was sentenced to 6 years in prison, to run concurrently with her neglect of a dependent sentence, ABC News reported
Doctors quickly realized that she had lost a pregnancy, and she confessed that she had left the fetus in a dumpster.
Patel became a suspect and was subsequently questioned in the hospital after undergoing surgery to remove the placenta.
In addition to the charge of negligence, prosecutors later added the charge of feticide based on text messages that were on the woman’s phone, showing that she took abortion drugs, which she purchased online.
Toxicologists found no trace of such drugs in her body or in the fetus. However, the text messages was sufficient for a jury to convict Patel of feticide.
Feticide is a charge normally used against those who harm a ant pregnant women, but was never used for a pregnant woman aborting her own baby.
