Chloe Coplen-Anderson, Nebraska teen sentenced to 35-60 years jail for killing newborn baby after then 15 year old becoming impregnated by 19 year old man, technically sexual assault. Teen hid pregnancy from her family.
Did she get a raw deal? A then 16 year old Nebraska teen who slit her newborn baby son’s throat, killing the boy, during a secret birth was on Thursday sentenced to 35 years to 60 years prison.
Chloe Coplen-Anderson, 18, was issued the prison term after previously pleading no contest to second degree murder in connection to the newborn’s 2023 death.
The newborn’s death followed the then pregnant teen having hid her pregnancy and slicing her newborn son’s throat moments after he was born in her bedroom according to a previous arrest warrant.
How did Nebraska parents not notice their teen daughter was pregnant?
An officer with the Gordon Police Department arrived at Coplen-Anderson’s home on Nov. 6, 2023, after receiving a report of a teenage girl giving birth to a baby boy who was not breathing, the affidavit stated.
The affidavit stated that the officer arriving to find Coplen-Anderson’s father saying he believed the child had been stillborn and that it was too late to save the baby,
Coplen-Anderson’s mother, however told police her daughter had ‘hurt’ her newborn, pointing to where the baby had been stabbed according to the affidavit.
Both parents told officers they had seen their daughter remove a knife from the kitchen earlier that day. The affidavit notes that the knife was still missing from the drawer when authorities arrived at the home.
According to the affidavit, police were later called back to the residence after Coplen-Anderson’s father found the knife hidden in his daughter’s closet and covered in blood, the Star-Herald reported.
Abortion in Nebraska, teen pregnancy and technical sexual assault
Not immediately clear is how the parents came to not observe that their daughter was pregnant and why their teen daughter had declined to confide to them that she had been impregnated by a 19 year old and the victim of sexual assault?
Which is to wonder, to what degree was the traumatized teen, herself a child able to deal with the severity of her situation and the consequences of her actions? Shouldn’t the court afforded her more leniency? Was she not failed to some extent by her family, the state and lack of education that ought to have been afforded to the girl.
Coplen-Anderson’s attorney Todd Lancaster alleges Coplen-Anderson had been abused by family members, People Mag reported.
The lawyer further claimed, as a result of the trauma that Coplen-Anderson suffered from multiple mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder.
Chloe Coplen-Anderson, victim of sexual assault
Coplen-Anderson was 15 when she became pregnant with the child, and that the baby’s father was 19. Sex between a person who is 19 and an individual who is 15 or younger is considered sexual assault in the state of Nebraska.
Lancaster also claimed in court that no adults stepped in to help his client or stage an intervention.
Of note, the state of Nebraska forbids abortion (after the 12th week of pregnancy) except for instances of danger to the life of the mother, rape and incest.
Not immediately clear is what legal and reproductive services the state offers pregnant women. If any. And whether the court should have afforded the girl more leniency as technically she was raped at the time of her pregnancy.
In August 2024, Coplen-Anderson agreed to plead no contest to the second-degree murder charge in exchange for prosecutors downgrading the initial charge of first-degree murder.
Prosecutors also dropped charges of child abuse resulting in death and use of a deadly weapon against Coplen-Anderson.
Second-degree murder is punishable by anywhere from 20 years in prison to life in prison in the state of Nebraska.
Coplen-Anderson will be at least 51 when she leaves prison at the earliest. She has already spent two years behind bars, time which will be applied towards time served.
It remained unclear if the 18 year old woman’s legal team would seek to appeal the severity of the sentencing, given that technically she had been raped at the time of her impregnation.
