London Court clears path to extradite American mother accused of killing 2 of her children in Colorado

LONDON (AP) — A London judge on Friday rejected an American mother’s challenge to his extradition to face Colorado murder charges in death of two of his young children.

The ruling by Justice John Zani at Westminster Magistrates’ Court clears the way for the British government to order Kimberlee Singler returned to America. It was unclear when that would happen.

Singler, 36th Year-old girl with knife in Colorado Springs. She also faces three counts of child abuse and one count of assault.

Singler’s lawyer had argued that sending her back to the United States would violate European human rights law, in part, because she faces a sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted in Colorado of murder in the first degree.

Such a sentence would be inhumane because it offers no prospect of release even if she is rehabilitated, lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald said that despite an option for a Colorado governor to commute his sentence at some point, it would be “political suicide” to do so.

Defense experts initially said a life sentence had never been commuted in Colorado. But prosecutors later discovered that Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2018 commuted life sentences of five men convicted of murder.

The defense countered that three of those sentences were not life without parole and that two were for men who committed their crimes between the ages of 18 and 21, which is sometimes considered a mitigating factor in sentencing in due to the relative youth of the offender.

“This defendant, Kimberlee Singler, has no real prospect of release, no matter how much progress she makes” behind bars, Fitzgerald said.

Prosecutor Joel Smith said the judge only had to consider whether there was a mechanism that could allow Singler to one day be released – not the likelihood of that happening.

“Prospect of release — that’s not your concern,” Smith told the judge during a December hearing.

Zani said in his ruling that he believed there was an option in Colorado to release an inmate serving a life sentence.

“I am satisfied that the defendant has failed to pass the necessary hurdle to successfully complete the challenges faced,” the judge said.

Fitzgerald said he planned to appeal to the High Court.

The Colorado Springs Police Department said it had no estimate when Singler could be returned to the United States.

“CSPD is aware of the ongoing extradition process regarding Kimberlee Singler, as well as the legal rights that have always been available to her in the United Kingdom. Our investigative efforts into the ongoing case continue, and we will continue to work diligently toward its conclusion,” police spokesperson Ira Cronin said in a statement.

The December 18, 2023 murders took place in an apartment where Singler had stayed with his mother during a custody battle with her ex-husband, who had recently received more parenting time. His mother was away at the time.

Two days before the crimes, Singler was supposed to return the children to her husband for the holidays, but refused to let her sister pick them up. The husband’s lawyer obtained a court order on December 18 for her to exchange the children two days later.

Singler denied hurting his children, Fitzgerald said. She told police her ex-husband either carried out the killings or hired a hitman.

She told police that her ex-husband “had previously dreamed of killing her family, that the children’s father was always trying to ‘frame’ her and ‘get her arrested’ and take the children away from her,” Zani said in his decision.

Police said her husband had a strong alibi, supported by GPS records that showed he was driving a truck at the time of the murders about 80 miles (130 kilometers) away.

Singler told police an intruder entered the apartment that morning through a patio door she forgot to lock and attacked her and she lost consciousness. Police said they found no footprints in the snow leading to the patio.

Singler described being too weak to get help and said she couldn’t find her phone.

She said, however, that when she had enough strength, she found her youngest children dead and gave her surviving daughter water throughout the day.

Late that night, she said she heard her phone ringtone playing Christmas music and called police for help when she located it.

Singler had superficial knife wounds and was initially treated as a victim.

But that changed after her surviving daughter, who initially told police a similar intruder story, said her mother tried to kill her.

After her daughter changed her story, police sought to arrest Singler on Dec. 26, but she had fled. She was found four days later in the posh London neighborhood of Chelsea and arrested.

The girl, who was not named, told police that her mother gave the children a powdery substance to drink and told them to close their eyes as she guided them into a bedroom, said prosecutors.

Singler cut her neck and, as the girl begged her to stop, she cut her again. The daughter said her mother had a gun.

“The defendant told him that God was telling him to do it and that the children’s father would take them away,” Smith said at an earlier hearing.

Police found Aden Wentz, 7, and Elianna “Ellie” Wentz, 9, dead when they entered the Colorado Springs apartment early on the morning of Dec. 19. They had been shot and stabbed.