25 years in prison for shaken-baby death

Lorena Oropeza lost control for just minutes, her attorney says, but that fleeting moment ended a child's life and now will cost her 25 years of her own.

The 28-year-old mom from outside Des Plaines pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder in the August 2006 shaken-baby death of a 5-week-old girl, earning her a quarter-century behind bars. She'll have to serve the entire sentence.

The crime could have put her in prison for life.

Oropeza had been babysitting the infant -- a girl whose family shared the same apartment as Oropeza, her husband and two young boys -- on Aug. 18, 2006, when she became angry that the child wouldn't stop crying, prosecutors said. She shook the baby, officials said, and threw her to the ground.

The infant, Jennifer Rivera, later was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge by her parents, authorities said, when they returned home to find her struggling to breathe, not moving her arms or legs and having some seizures.

Oropeza told police she never called an ambulance because she was scared, prosecutors have said.

Baby Jennifer, who officials said suffered a concussion, bleeding on the brain and two detached retinas, died Aug. 21. Oropeza, of the 9600 block of Golf Terrace, was arrested and charged with aggravated battery to a child. Prosecutors later changed that to first-degree murder.

"It's probably one of the saddest cases that you can imagine. Horrible, all the way around," said Oropeza's lawyer, Shannon Lynch, who maintained many people don't know the damage that can be caused by such actions. "She lost her control for a few minutes … and it was never an intended death."

Oropeza, who confessed on videotape to the crime, leaves behind a husband and two young boys, both under the age of 5, Lynch said. That makes the situation especially tragic, he said, noting, "You now have two parents who no longer have their 5-week-old child, and you have a mother of two boys who's spending 25 years in prison."

The crime had been death penalty-eligible, but prosecutors decided against that.

On Thursday, Cook County Judge Timothy Chambers said he felt a 25-year sentence -- five years more than the minimum for the crime -- was appropriate given the fact that Oropeza had no criminal background. An investigation by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services also revealed she had no history of abuse toward her own children.

Oropeza had faced two first-degree murder counts. In exchange for Thursday's guilty plea, one was dropped.