Would-be baby abductor draws 44-year sentence

• Judith Walker pleaded guilty to attacking a Muncie mother and trying to take her baby.
• Walker received a 52-year prison term%2C with eight years suspended.
• Her victim said as a result of Walker's crimes%2C she had lost her "sense of safety."

MUNCIE – A woman who attacked a Muncie mother in a bid to steal her newborn infant was sentenced Wednesday to 44 years in prison.

Judith A. Walker, 35, in August pleaded guilty to burglary resulting in bodily injury, criminal confinement and attempted criminal confinement.

The Anderson woman was arrested in June 2013 after she went to her victim's westside home — where Walker had posed as an exterminator on two earlier visits — and wrapped an extension cord around the mother's neck, saying, "I won't shoot you. I just want your baby."

After a struggle, the mother was able to flee from the house with her infant, then three weeks old.

"In order to commit the crime and get away with it," Delaware Circuit Court 1 Judge Marianne Vorhees told Walker, "you had to kill this woman. ... That really, really bothers me."

An attempted murder charge was dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

The baby's mother told the judge Walker's actions had changed "my life, my daughter's life and the lives of so many others."

"I think about what (her daughter's) life would have been like had Judy killed me that day," the woman said, tearfully adding that she had lost her "sense of safety."

Walker said she could remember little about her crimes due to drug abuse. Authorities said Walker had told friends she was pregnant, or in the process of adopting a baby, in the days before the attempted abduction.

She attributed her actions to that substance abuse, along with mental illness, her failed efforts to become pregnant or adopt a child, family tragedies and abuse she suffered at the hands of a boyfriend.

"Poor Judy Walker," said Chief Trial Deputy Prosecutor Eric Hoffman, who recommended a 70-year sentence. "She's done a great job trying to turn this hearing into a pity party for her. ... She's not sorry. She's sorry she got caught."

Hoffman noted that Walker set out to steal "not a TV, not a stereo, not money, but a human being."

"This was not a spur-of-the-moment, drug-induced decision," he said.

Reading from a statement, Walker called her crimes "totally unexcusable," maintaining she was at heart "a very loving, gentle (and) kind person."

"I'm so sorry for all of the worry and pain and embarrassment that I've caused you," she told the victim and her family.

Defense attorney Michael Quirk called his client a "drug addict" who suffered from mental illness.

"Nobody in their right mind would ever think that (abduction) plan was going to work," he said.

Quirk suggested his client's sentence should be split between time in prison and on probation, to assure she was monitored after her release.

Vorhees told Walker she had sentenced many defendants with drug problems.

"I've never seen a drug addict do what you did, try to kill someone to steal their baby," the judge said.

Vorhees imposed a total 52-year sentence, with eight years suspended. Walker will be on probation for eight years after leaving prison.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. You can also follow him on Twitter @DouglasWalkerSP.