A West Virginia mother allegedly stabbed her 3-month-old child to death

WESTON, West Virginia (TCD) — A 31-year-old mother has been arrested and charged after she allegedly stabbed her 3-month-old child to death.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by WBOY-TV, on Friday, Dec. 30, shortly before 8 a.m., Lewis County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to an apartment complex to a report of a deceased child. There, deputies reportedly found a woman inside the flat “kneeling in front of the sofa with a lifeless baby in her arms”.

Deputies also located a second woman covered in blood and a bloody butcher knife nearby, WBOY reports.

One of the women, Krista Brunecz, 31, allegedly stabbed herself. She and her 3-month-old child were taken to hospital, where the baby was pronounced dead, according to WBOY.

The baby’s shirt reportedly had “several holes in the chest”, which “appeared to have been inflicted by a knife”.

Medical staff reportedly determined that Brunecz “stabbed her baby and then herself.”

The baby’s heart and lungs had been punctured by a knife, and the victim was determined to have died from “several stab wounds to the chest,” WBOY reports.

On Friday, January 20, Brunecz was incarcerated in the North-Central Regional Prison and charged with the death of a child by a parent, guardian or guardian, child abuse, records show. She could face 15 years to life if convicted.

One of the suspect’s relatives said WDTV-TV that Brunecz suffered from postpartum depression.

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