The mom who stabbed her baby to death is found dead in prison

Six years into her 17-year-long sentence for stabbing her baby with a pair of scissors, Rachel Tunstill dies in prison.

Back in 2017, she stabbed her baby girl, Mia Kelly, more than 15 times in the bathroom of their Burnley home and threw her lifeless body in a bin.

Tunstill was initially convicted of murder and handed a life sentence with minimum term of 20 years, but a re-trial proved the jury in the case should have been offered a verdict of infanticide to consider. During the re-trial she was once again convicted of murder and put behind bars for a minimum of 17 years.

“HMP Styal prisoner Rachel Tunstill died in custody on 1 August 2023. As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate,” a spokesperson from the Prison Service confirmed the news of her passing.

Credit: Lancashire Police

At the time she gave birth, her boyfriend was playing video games in the next room. She then told him she had a miscarriage and asked for the scissors after which she remorselessly stabbed the baby to death.

At the time of sentencing, the judge, Mr Justice King, said: “This must have been a sustained and frenzied attack on a victim who because of her age was particularly vulnerable. Her duty to her newborn baby was to cradle and comfort her – not to stab her to death.

“There was here in my judgement concealment of the body, albeit short-lived and in addition there was undoubtedly the indignity which was wrought upon the body by disposing of it in the way she did.”

HMP Styal where Tunstill served her life sentence
Credit: Liverpool Echo

Tunstill was a university master’s graduate in forensic psychology.

“She showed no emotion or remorse for stabbing her baby to death,” said Mr Justice King.

32 of the most haunting photos from history

History is more than just innovations and triumphs. In truth, much of it involves numerous instances of brutality, warfare, genocide, and other unsettling, regrettable realities.

Take a look below at some of the most haunting moments from history.

A starving Sudanese child crawls towards a United Nations feeding center while a vulture patiently waits for its next meal. This photo won a Pulitzer Prize, but the photographer, Kevin Carter, took his own life three months later.
The two siblings shown here are experiencing the thrill of an electrical storm at Sequoia National Park in California around 1975. Shortly after this picture was taken, they were struck by lightning. Both survived.
A councilman in the Philippines took this photo of his family on New Year’s Day in 2011, inadvertently capturing the image of his assassin. The councilman later succumbed to a gunshot wound to the head.
A photographer accidentally captures the moment a person jumped off a bridge in China.
American free diver Nicholas Mevoli moments before he passed away after a botched dive.

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