Kentucky mother admits to murdering her newborn by throwing him off second-storey balcony

The Clay County woman who confessed to her baby’s murder can face up to 40 years in prison

Amber Bowling told a Kentucky courtroom on Monday that she killed her newborn child by throwing him over the railing of her apartment’s two-story balcony. (Clay County Detention Center)

A Kentucky woman admitted to killing her hours-old baby by tossing him from a balcony two stories above the ground in 2018, according to local reports.

Amber Bowling pleaded guilty in a Kentucky courtroom on Monday to murdering her newborn child and faces a sentencing of up to 40 years in prison. She is scheduled to be sentenced on 27 June.

The Clay County mother was 21 years old at the time of her son’s birth in December 2018, according to Kentucky State Police.

An arrest citation describes how Bowling placed the crying boy, born just hours before his horrific death, inside a garbage bag and threw him over the railing of the second-storey apartment complex in Manchester, a small city located about 160 miles southeast of Louisville.

Neighbours later found the child’s body on the ground below.

“I couldn’t sleep at night knowing, just seeing what he’s seen, over and over in your mind again,” said Tyler Herd, the son of the neighbour who discovered Bowling’s dead child after coming home from work, to LEX 18 back in 2018.

A coroner later determined that the infant died from injuries related to blunt-force trauma, The arrest citation described how the boy had a cranial fracture, broken ribs and a brain bleed.

Since 2016, the state has had a Safe Haven Law which allows parents 30 days to surrender their parental rights and hand over their children to the state if they feel they’re unable to care for them.