Victim’s family to fight for fetal homicide law

AUGUSTA – Relatives of a pregnant Bangor woman brutally murdered by her husband more than two years ago vowed Tuesday they would continue their fight to have an unborn child recognized in Maine law as a separate victim.

Kristen Eckmann of Camden said a compromise bill passed by the Legislature on Monday and expected to be signed into law by the governor next week is good, but not good enough.

The original fetal homicide bill would have allowed murder or manslaughter charges to be filed for the death of a fetus. The compromise measure the Senate passed 35-0 on Monday creates a new crime of elevated aggravated assault, which is punishable by up to 30 years in prison if an assault on a pregnant woman results in the death of the fetus. The House backed the measure last week.

Eckmann’s niece Heather Fliegelman Sargent, 20, was murdered on Jan. 4, 2003, at the residence she shared with Roscoe Sargent, 30, in Rainbow Trailer Park in Bangor. Two days later, police found her body and four dead cats in the couple’s bedroom. The woman had been stabbed 47 times.

Fliegelman Sargent’s 34-week-old male fetus, named Jonah, died as a result of the attack, but because Maine has no fetal homicide law, Roscoe Sargent was charged only with his wife’s murder. He was convicted last year and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

“I promised Heather’s dad and mom that we would pass a bill that acknowledged Jonah as a victim,” Eckmann said in a phone interview Tuesday. “I’m disappointed in that respect.

“Meanwhile,” she continued, “we’ve started a political action committee called Justice for Jonah to help raise money to amend this [bill] or to do something else.”

Eckmann did not say what something else meant, but did not rule out using the political action committee to raise money to seek a statewide referendum on the issue.

As it stands now, Gov. John Baldacci is to sign the elevated aggravated assault bill into law sometime next week. Eckmann and Kristy Fowler Eckmann of Dedham, also Fliegelman Sargent’s aunt, plan to attend.

Both women praised the last-minute compromise, brokered by pro-life and pro-choice legislators when it appeared the original bill was headed for defeat.

“I’m happy that they went ahead and they compromised on something to get a bill in the system,” Kristy Fowler Eckmann said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “Unfortunately, it does not recognize the unborn child as a victim.”

If prosecuted under the compromise measure, Sargent could have been charged with the murder of his wife and elevated aggravated assault because his unborn son died as a result of the attack, but not with two counts of homicide as was Scott Peterson in a notorious California case.

California is one of 32 states that have fetal homicide laws. Peterson was convicted in 2004 of murdering his wife, Laci Peterson, and her male fetus, Connor. The federal government also has such a law, but Maine and 17 other states do not.

The original bill, sponsored by Rep. Brian Duprey, R-Hampden, created a firestorm at the State House.

Senate Democratic leaders who opposed the House-backed bill repeatedly postponed votes and decided instead to send it back to the Judiciary Committee for a possible rewrite.

Although the bill did not directly involve abortion, the legislative battle played out against a backdrop of conflicting claims about whether the bill would affect abortion rights.

That debate focused on whether the proposal was fashioned as an attempt to erode abortion rights, as opponents insisted, or was simply a straightforward attempt to protect the rights of all murder victims, as supporters claimed.

Activists on both sides were forced to craft a compromise that creates the new crime of “elevated aggravated assault on a pregnant person.”

A suspect can be convicted of that crime if the assailant causes serious bodily injury that “results in the termination of a pregnancy.” The bill does not apply to fetal deaths resulting from an abortion or medical care, which will not be treated as assault.

The Senate passed the compromise bill after a brief debate in which Republican Sen. Debra Plowman of Hampden, who ultimately voted for the measure, said it has merit but fails to recognize that there are “two victims” if an attacker kills a pregnant woman and her fetus.

Democratic Sen. Barry Hobbins of Saco countered that the bill “does something that we do not have in the law now,” by creating a category of assault that applies only to victims who are pregnant and lose their fetuses.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.