Grandmother jailed for throwing toddler off skywalk

A US grandmother was convicted of first-degree murder Thursday and sentenced to 35 years in prison for tossing her 2-year-old granddaughter from a pedestrian bridge at a shopping mall.

The jury rejected Carmela dela Rosa's insanity defense. Prosecutors said she threw Angelyn Ogdoc off a 45-foot-high skywalk like a "piece of trash" last November because she was angry at her son-in-law for getting her daughter pregnant out of wedlock.

"There is no victim more innocent than a child, unable to defend herself," Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Morrogh said.

The jury concluded dela Rosa's actions were premeditated. They saw a videotaped confession dela Rosa gave to detectives in which she admitted she thought about throwing Angelyn off the bridge several minutes before she did it. She also told detectives that she saw Angelyn as a way to get back at the son-in-law, James Ogdoc.

Dela Rosa's attorneys said she did not know right from wrong and had been suffering from severe depression, with several suicide attempts in the months before Angelyn's death.

She had faced a minimum prison sentence of 20 years.

Dela Rosa stared blankly as the verdict was read, as she did for most of the trial. While asking for a minimum sentence, public defender Dawn Butorac told jurors that despite dela Rosa's flat demeanor "she does feel extremely remorseful."

Butorac argued that dela Rosa was a different woman in her depressive episodes, withdrawn and "afraid of the world" to the point that she regularly refused to leave the house.

The child's mother, Mary Kathyln Ogdoc, cried as she described the impact of her daughter's death.

"I don't get to wake up next to her anymore. We can't have breakfast with her anymore," she said.