Appeal in Matter Dead Newborns Denied

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled against a Red Wing woman who was convicted for the murders of her two newborns. 

51-year old Jennifer Matter was sentenced to 27 years in prison in April and is serving sentence at the state prison in Shakopee.

Matter appealed the sentence, arguing the court abused its discretion by denying her downward departure request and by doling out a sentence that was not at the lower end of state guidelines. 

Matter was charged after DNA and other evidence proved she was the mother of two of the three newborn children who were found dead in the Mississippi River in southeastern Minnesota between 1999 and 2007.

Matter admitted to giving birth of a baby boy found at the Methodist Campus Beach in Frontenac in 2003 and leaving the baby there.