Mother Convicted of Killing Her Baby at Convent: 'I Did Not Know I Was Pregnant'

A woman studying to become a nun who was convicted of killing her newborn baby at a DC convent says she didn't know she was pregnant, she has told The Washington Post.

Sosefina Amoa, 26, had only just arrived from Samoa five days earlier when she gave birth in October, according to the Post.

She recalled to the newspaper in a jailhouse interview that she left a prayer meeting at the convent, Little Sisters of the Poor in DC, when she began to feel cramps.

She gave birth to the baby in her room at the convent and smothered the baby's cries with a sweater for fear that the nuns would hear him, the newspaper reported. The baby died; she says she "accidentally smothered the baby amid the shock and pain of childbirth," the Post reported.

At first she told the sisters she had found the newborn, but later admitted the baby was hers.

Amoa is to be sentenced on Friday and could face up to 30 years in prison. Her attorneys said they are hoping the judge will take into account the seven months she has been in jail and send her back to her native Samoa.