Mother who stabbed her newborn baby to death in bathroom dies in prison

Rachel Tunstill died six years into her 17 year sentence for the murder of Mia Kelly

Rachel Tunstill, 26, killed Mia Kelly soon after giving birth to her in the bathroom, January 2017 (Lancashire Police)

A mother who stabbed her newborn baby to death with a pair of scissors has died in prison, six years into her 17 year sentence for murder.

Rachel Tunstill died on Monday, HM Prison Service has confirmed, having stabbed Mia Kelly more than 15 times in 2017 in the bathroom of their Burnley home.

She was initially convicted of murder and handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 20 years. But her counsel argued that she should have been convicted on her lesser charge of infanticide.

This led to a re-trial which proved that a jury should have been given the opportunity to consider infanticide rather than murder.

But when she was back in court two years later in 2019 where she was convicted of murder for the second time and put behind bars for a minimum of 17 years. She was 28 when jailed in 2019, meaning she would have been in her early thirties when she died.

A Prison Service spokesperson said on Thursday: “HMP Styal prisoner Rachel Tunstill died in custody on August 1.

“As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”

Tunstill gave birth to Mia in secret while her boyfriend played video games in another room and then killed her. She told her boyfriend, who believed she was only a few weeks pregnant, that she had miscarried.

She wrapped her baby in plastic bags and placed it into a bin in a killing branded as “horrific, callous and brutal” by police in Lancashire at the time.

Tunstill was jailed in Styal Prison in Lancashire (Google Maps)

The mother was arrested after she went to hospital for a check up and was found to still be carrying the baby’s umbilical cord and placenta.

In the 2017 hearing, the judge, Mr Justice Davis, said there was “no way of knowing” why this “dreadful” crime happened.

Mr Justice King said upon sentencing: “This must have been a sustained and frenzied attack on a victim who because of her age was particularly vulnerable.

"Her duty to her newborn baby was to cradle and comfort her - not to stab her to death."