50 Years Later: Mother Faces Charges of Murdering Baby

In 2009 James Klokow, 55, of Sheboygan, Wis., entered his local police department headquarters to accuse his mother, Ruby Klokow, 74, of murdering his sister 53 years earlier, as reported by AOL News and the Sheboygan Press.

The baby, Jeaneen Marie Klokow, was 7 months old when she died.  The incident was investigated at the time and deemed an accident.  The mother had claimed that her daughter had fallen off of a sofa and hit her head.

Ruby Klokow is scheduled for her preliminary hearing on February 15, 2011.

During a recent interview with detectives Klokow admitted that she, "shouldn't have had any children, wished that she never had children, and knew she was 'mean' to them."

In 1957, when the alleged murder occurred, Wisconsin's criminal statutes were different and Klokow is charged based on those past statutes.  Due to this - specifically that second-degree murder charges no longer exist in Wisconsin - Klokow is being charged with what is more similar to reckless homicide, the current charge for the crime.  She will be facing up to 25 years in prison if found guilty.

On February 8 Klokow was ordered held on a $10,000 cash bond.  She queried the court commissioner to explain what a preliminary hearing is and how she should get a lawyer.  Klokow commented, "I don't think it's going to make any difference if I have an attorney or not."

In Klokow's interview with police last year she explained that when Jeaneen died she had been raising three other children and was a victim of childhood trauma herself.

Based on a review of a detailed autopsy report, and interviews with other Klokow family members, detectives made the decision to have Jeaneen's body exhumed.  (Along with Jeaneen, detectives also ordered the exhumation of Scott Klokow.  Scott was another child of Klokow's that was discovered dead in his crib almost ten years after Jeaneen's death.)

The criminal complaint said that after Jeaneen was exhumed, a forensic pathologist found three bruises on her scalp and two brain hemorrhages.  Both injuries are consistent, he said, with abuse and not with an accidental single fall from a sofa.

At this new evidence police went back to Klokow to question her again, and she amended her story.

She said that Jeaneen and James Jr. - the son that now stands as her accuser in his sister's death - were both crying at the same time and she grew frustrated with them.  Klokow said that she grabbed Jeaneen out of her stroller and threw her toward the couch.

She said then that her baby, Jeaneen, made a noise that was a "different kind of cry."  And, Klokow added, Jeaneen's eyes looked strange.

Joe DeCecco, the Sheboygan District Attorney, told the press, "We have to recognize it was something that happened in 1957 ... and it wasn't intentional, although it was reckless."

Contact a criminal defense attorney as soon as possible if you have been charged with a crime and are preparing for trial.