New Mother Weeps, Gets 17 Years for Murder

Moments after being sentenced to 17 years to life in state prison for murder, a 28-year-old woman reached over the railing in a Van Nuys courtroom Monday and touched the face of her 6-day-old son.

“I take life and give a life,” a sobbing Sheila Blackburn told her husband, Steve, who was holding the baby in an infant seat in the spectator gallery of the courtroom.

Sheila Blackburn, carrying a Bible, was then led away by a bailiff to begin serving her prison term. She will be eligible for parole in about eight years.

The dramatic moment ended an emotional sentencing hearing before Superior Court Judge George Xanthos.

Blackburn, of Tujunga, pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder in the shooting death of her ex-husband’s wife, Julie Sabatino, 29, of Van Nuys.

Blackburn, who had been fighting with her ex-husband, Richard Sabatino, for legal custody of their son, Ricky, now 11, admitted that she hid overnight in a closet in the couple’s home before emerging with a rifle on Dec. 11 to confront Julie Sabatino.

In a probation report, Blackburn said she and Julie Sabatino argued, then the “gun started firing.”

Blackburn was pregnant at the time of the shooting and delivered the baby, Matthew, last Tuesday while in Sheriff’s Department custody at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

In tears, Blackburn told Xanthos that she deserved to die for the murder.

“I have done something so horrible that any human being should be punished by the electric chair to take a human life,” she said.

Blackburn first was charged with first-degree murder and the special circumstance of lying in wait, which could have made her eligible for the death penalty.

However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew W. Diamond said he agreed to the plea bargain to spare Ricky the ordeal of testifying against his mother. Ricky had seen his mother crouched in the closet with the rifle and had promised not to expose her, the prosecutor said.

Although Xanthos imposed the maximum sentence allowed by law, the victim’s mother, Mary Ann Ray, pleaded for a longer sentence, saying she must now care for her daughter’s two young children from a previous marriage.

“We are all victims,” Ray said.

Richard Sabatino did not speak at the hearing but later tearfully told a reporter that he and Ricky have had difficulty discussing the shooting.

“He’s ruined for the rest of his life. He’ll never forget it,” Sabatino said of his son.

Defense attorney Charles Lindner said he will petition prison authorities to allow Blackburn to see her baby while in custody.