A mother diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic was sentenced to the maximum 50 years to life in prison Wednesday for drowning her 4-year-old son in a bathtub last year and attempting to kill her other son.
Christine Wilhelm, 39, was convicted of murder last month in the drowning death of young Luke. She was also found guilty of attempted murder for trying to drown Peter, then 5, who escaped her grasp.
"It was not a merciful killing," the boys' father, Kenneth Wilhelm, said as he cried in court Wednesday. "It was more a form of brutal torture."
As Christine Wilhelm was led from the courtroom after the sentencing, she shouted: "You're all liars."
At trial, prosecutors said Wilhelm masked a hideous crime behind her mental illness, while the defense countered that Luke's drowning at their Hoosick Falls home the night of April 15, 2002, was a tragedy caused by her psychotic delusions.
Wilhelm claimed she drowned Luke because she believed her husband had joined a satanic cult and planned to harm both children. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
District Attorney Patricia DeAngelis said Wilhelm will get psychiatric treatment in prison.
She remains delusional and talks about the boys in the present tense, defense attorney Jerome Frost said. He planned to appeal, saying testimony from the social workers who interviewed Wilhelm should have been excluded.
A case worker testified that Wilhelm told her she knew what she was doing was wrong and tried to resuscitate Luke, but instead of calling for help, she put him back in the tub and killed him.
Kenneth Wilhelm was working a night shift as a nurse at Albany Medical Center 30 miles away at the time. He testified his wife had stopped taking medication for her illness and her mental condition had deteriorated.