Mum who stabbed newborn baby with scissors in 'remorseless' killing dies in prison
1 August 2023, 19:52 | Updated: 1 August 2023, 19:56
A mother who stabbed her newborn baby to death has died in prison while serving a life sentence for her daughter's death.
Rachel Tunstill killed her newborn baby Mia Kelly in their Burnley, Lancashire home in 2017.
The mum stabbed her daughter with a pair of scissors in the bathroom of her home before dumping the scissors in the kitchen bin, wrapping her baby in plastic bags and putting the body in the kitchen bin.
She was found guilty of murder and jailed for a minimum of 20 years in June 2017 after a trial at Preston Crown Court but she was later sent to retrial after it was suggested she should have been tried for infanticide.
She was found guilty of murder a second time, and received life with a minimum sentence of 17 years.
However the Prison Service at HMP Styal in Cheshire where she was serving her sentence today confirmed that she has died.
A spokesperson said: "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."
Tunstill gave birth while her boyfriend was playing computer games in the room next door.
She told him she was having a miscarriage and asked him for scissors before she used them to stab the baby just after giving birth.
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."
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.
