Left: Anna Louise Englund and Miles Basellio (Facebook). Right: Miles Basellio (KUSA)
A 31-year-old woman in Colorado will spend several decades behind bars for killing her 2-month-old son, strangling the infant to death while in the throes of postpartum psychosis.
Boulder County District Court Judge Thomas Mulvahill on Wednesday ordered Anna Louise Englund to serve a sentence of 40 years in a state correctional facility for the 2023 slaying of young Miles Basellio, authorities confirmed to Law&Crime.
Englund had initially been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree murder of a victim under the age of 12 by someone in a position of trust, which carry mandatory minimum sentences of life in prison with the chance for parole. However, she reached a deal with prosecutors in the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office and agreed to plea to a lesser charge of second-degree murder while the more serious charges were dismissed.
The court credited Englund, who has remained in detention since her arrest in June 2023, with 423 days of time already served.
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“This guilty plea and lengthy sentence is the right result in this very sad case,” District Attorney Michael Dougherty said in a statement . “It is heartbreaking to acknowledge the immense emotional toll on the baby’s father and family, as well as all the police officers who desperately tried to prevent this tragic murder. Our prosecution team worked hard to ensure that we were able to secure the right outcome for this defendant, which is a very lengthy sentence to state prison.”
Englund’s defense attorney, Laren Bennett, argued during Wednesday’s proceedings that the mental health care system “failed both Ms. Englund and her infant son,” the Daily Camera reported . Bennett added that Englund “loved her son and family” and still “experiences a great sense of regret and remorse for what happened.”
Englund also addressed the court, explaining what she was going through in the weeks after giving birth to Miles.
“All I can recall was that I had bizarre auditory and visual hallucinations,” Englund reportedly said. “I didn’t sleep, then I started to have violent visual hallucinations.”
Adding to the already tragic circumstances of the case, Englund told the court that she agreed to plead guilty and go to prison to ensure that she could no longer harm her husband, saying her time parenting Miles with him — before her hallucinations began — was the “best two months of her life,” per the Daily Camera.
“He kept our son safe,” she reportedly said. “He was very cautious about not leaving [Miles] with me. I convinced him and myself that I was OK but I was still in psychosis. I’m so sorry I took fatherhood away from him and left a hole in his life.”
As previously reported , police on June 10, responded to Englund’s home to conduct a welfare check on “a woman who was possibly having a mental health crisis.” Witnesses told police that Englund had taken her infant son from the home and driven away.
Prosecutors said that Englund waited until the child’s father “went the bathroom,” then sneaked out of the house with Miles and “drove to a location where she killed him.”
Englund’s whereabouts remained a mystery for several hours after an “attempt to locate” alert was issued, investigators said. Englund was found shortly after 10 p.m. that evening parked in the lot of Boulder Community Health Foothills Hospital. Miles was also in the vehicle and rushed to the emergency room where he was admitted in critical condition. The medical staff was unable to resuscitate the child and he was pronounced dead 10:48 p.m., police said.
She told police she had only driven a few blocks from her home when she put Miles in her lap and strangled him, telling police it was “because I didn’t want him to suffer in life like I have,” the Denver Post reported .
Prosecutors said after killing her son, Englund “drove around” with the boy’s body “for several hours.”
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Matt Naham contributed to this report.
The post Mom who strangled infant son and ‘drove around’ with body ‘for several hours’ says parenting was the ‘best 2 months’ of her life first appeared on Law & Crime .
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