In a legal maneuver that closed the books on a 6 1/2-year murder case, a Homer Township woman convicted of killing her 10-month-old daughter was freed Thursday by a Will County judge.
But Deborah Blommaert, 39, who served nearly 3 years in prison before having her conviction overturned by the Appellate Court in 1992, said she was angry that her freedom was based on her pleading guilty to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Blommaert said pleading guilty “was the hardest thing I ever had to do” and insisted she only accepted the plea bargain to end the case.
In exchange, Circuit Court Judge William Penn sentenced her to 68 months in prison and then noted that under current guidelines, she had served half the sentence and could be released.
“I’ll never forget the three years I was locked up,” she said. “And all the time I was asking, `Why am I here?’ “
In 1988 after Blommaert rejected a prosecution offer of a plea bargain on the manslaughter charge, a jury convicted her of killing her adopted daughter, Amy, who died Oct. 14, 1987, in Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn after lapsing into a coma at home two days earlier.
Blommaert told investigators the child went limp in her arms after a fall, but an autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner said the child had bruises on her head and body and ruled the death a homicide.
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The mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but in December 1992, the 3rd District Appellate Court in Ottawa overturned the conviction, saying that before she rejected the plea bargain, Blommaert’s lawyer told her she could be paroled within a year or two after a murder conviction.
A new trial was ordered, and Blommaert agreed to plead guilty in October. Her current lawyer, Frederick Cohn, said Blommaert was too tired to continue to fight the charges.
On Thursday, Cohn used quotations from the Old Testament in urging Penn to free the woman. “There is a time to heal,” he said, adding that she had served a full sentence for involuntary manslaughter, which is 2 to 5 years in prison.
Charles Zolar, a special appellate prosecutor, said that the child’s death was not accidental and that Blommaert said she was home alone with Amy.
Blommaert’s husband, Ron, said the court battles weren’t over. When Deborah Blommaert was arrested, their natural child, Justin, 4, was taken from the home by the Department of Children and Family Services. Although Justin is back home, DCFS is suing the couple for $5,800 it says was spent on the child’s care and welfare.
“It’s gotten to the point where they are threatening to garnishee my wages to pay them off,” he said.