Cops: Grandmother Kills Baby With Sledgehammer

Horrific murder near Chicago
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 8, 2013 1:21 PM CDT
Cops: Grandmother Kills Baby With Sledgehammer
A police photo of Alfreda Giedrojc.   (Oak Lawn Police Department)

“I have never seen anything like this," says the Oak Lawn police chief in suburban Chicago. The case he's referring to makes for grim reading: Police say a 61-year-old woman killed her 6-month-old granddaughter with a sledgehammer and a knife, reports CBS Local. Alfreda Giedrocz is charged with first-degree murder, and police haven't speculated about a motive. The Tribune says she "stood impassively" in court yesterday and needed help understanding the proceedings from a Polish translator. She is a naturalized citizen who has lived in the US since 1983.

The slaying happened Sunday morning. Police say the baby's father, Giedrocz's son-in-law, dropped off the infant, then went across the street with Giedrocz's husband to work on the home of the Giedroczs' son. Left alone with the baby, the grandmother retrieved a sledgehammer she had placed in a closet the previous day, say authorities. "The defendant then hit the victim repeatedly in the head and body with the sledgehammer," says a state attorney. She then used a kitchen knife to cut the child's throat, he says. (More grandmother stories.)

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