A Boulder mother on Wednesday admitted she killed her 2-month old son last year, court records show.
Anna Englund, 31, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of her child, Miles, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison, according to court records. As part of the plea agreement, two counts of first-degree murder — which carries a life sentence — were dismissed, the records show.
Englund experienced postpartum mental health problems and told police she tried to die by suicide after strangling Miles on June 10, 2023, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
On that day, she loaded Miles into a vehicle while the baby’s father was in the bathroom, drove a couple of blocks from home and then strangled the child in her lap “because I didn’t want him to suffer in life like I have,” the affidavit stated.
She told the officer “she was worried about all of the things that could happen” to her baby “because the world was ‘crazy.’” She then drove to Denver and looked for a place to die by suicide, she said.
The child’s father called police just before 5 p.m. when he could not find Englund or the baby, and officers spent several hours searching for the pair.
Englund eventually drove herself to Boulder Community Health and contacted police after 10 p.m. Authorities rushed the infant to the emergency room, where he was pronounced dead.
The woman told police she was sleep-deprived and had made several appointments to see a therapist but didn’t go to those appointments because she was exhausted. She’d been prescribed a medication while she was in the hospital “but she only took it once and she felt more suicidal…she refused to take it again,” the affidavit said.
Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty called the plea agreement “the right outcome” in a “tragic murder” in a statement Wednesday.
“This guilty plea and lengthy sentence is the right result in this very sad case,” he said.
