UNIONTOWN, Pa.,None — A judge has refused to reduce the prison sentence being served by a North Union Township woman whose newborn girl was found dead in a creek in 2000.
However, Fayette County Judge Steve Leskinen has agreed to give Sara Sue Hawk, 27, credit for 18 months she spent on house arrest against the 7 1/2- to 15-year sentence he upheld Thursday, according to Channel 11's news exchange partners at TribLIVE.
Hawk's attorney had argued for a reduction to six years because she's become a good mother to a subsequent child and because of the circumstances surrounding the newborn found in a backpack in a Uniontown creek.
Hawk was charged when DNA linked her to the baby in 2008, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and testified against her former brother-in-law, Warren Bircher.
Prosecutors claimed Bircher, of Adah, got Hawk pregnant and tried to conceal the affair by throwing the baby into Cove Run Creek after it was born. Bircher denied killing the child and said he never had sex with Hawk, who was then 16.
However, Bircher, 35, was acquitted of criminal homicide in the case last year. Hawk testified that Bircher got rid of the baby right after the child was born.
Previous Stories: August 6, 2010: Fayette County Man Cleared In Newborn's 2000 Death
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