A Colorado woman accused of killing her two young children lost her bid to avoid life in prison in the United States after a United Kingdom judge ruled that she can be extradited to the states for trial, according to Reuters.
U.K. authorities took Kimberlee Singler into custody on Dec. 30, 2023 after she was accused by Colorado authorities of drugging and killing her 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, and injuring her 11-year-old daughter before she allegedly fled overseas.
Her attorney, Edward Fitzgerald, Kings Counsel (KC), who also represented Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, argued that extraditing Singler to the U.S. would violate the European Convention of Human Rights, because she would not be eligible for parole if convicted, according to NBC News affiliate KOAA.
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Now that Judge John Zani has ruled in the case, U.K. home secretary Yvette Cooper will decide whether Singler will be sent back to Colorado, NBC reported.
Singler, 36, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, three counts of child abuse and one count of assault.
Joel Smith, KC, the attorney representing the U.S. in the U.K. extradition case, said in September when Singler’s extradition proceedings began that Singler allegedly killed her two children and tried to kill the third during an ongoing and contentious custody battle between her and her husband, NBC reported at the time.
“She shot the first child in the head and stabbed her in the neck, she shot the second child to the head and stabbed her in the neck. She attacked the third child to the neck with a knife causing serious lacerations,” Smith said, according to NBC.
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In their investigation of the crime scene in December 2023, Colorado authorities located spent rounds, a blood-stained knife and empty bottles of sleeping pills in a trash can. Police found the two dead children in bed together.
Colorado Springs police said at the time of the crime that they received a 911 call reporting a burglary from Singler’s address, but they later found the report to be “unfounded.”
“[The surviving child] said that the defendant had told the three children to close their eyes, she guided the first two children into the bedroom and approached the third child and told her to close her eyes. She then cut her to the side of the neck,” Smith said in September, according to NBC.
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Smith argued in September that a governor could eventually grant Singler clemency if she is convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Fitzgerald, meanwhile, said life sentences without the possibility of parole in the U.K. are “totally alien to us.” There were 63 people serving life sentences in the U.K. two months ago, whereas the U.S. had 49,000 people serving life sentences, Smith said, according to NBC.
Fox News Digital’s Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
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