AJ Freund murder: Judges denies JoAnn Cunningham’s challenge to conviction in beating death of son

The video featured is from a earlier report.

JoAnn Cunningham, 39, of Crystal Lake, claimed in her March petition for post-conviction aid that she suffered from postpartum despair and psychosis when she killed her son. Cunningham claimed she was “seeing demons and listening to voices” on the time of her son AJ’s loss of life.

Authorities say Cunningham killed AJ on April 15, 2019, after she turned offended about dirty underwear that he had tried to cover. She pressured the boy to face in a chilly bathe for not less than 20 minutes, hit him within the head with the bathe head, then put him to mattress chilly, moist and bare, in accordance with authorities.

AJ’s physique was discovered wrapped in plastic in a shallow grave close to the household’s residence in Crystal Lake.

How did Crystal Lake police crack the case of AJ Freund?

McHenry County Choose Robert Wilbrandt presided over her negotiated plea on Dec. 5, 2019, and sentencing on July 16, 2020. Andrew Freund, AJ’s father, additionally pleaded responsible in his loss of life and is serving a 30-year jail sentence.

Wilbrandt wrote in his ruling that Cunningham’s arguments in her petition “don’t present the ‘gist’ of a meritorious declare of considerable deprivation of a federal or state constitutional proper and that they’re patently with out benefit.”

Cunningham argued that no witnesses had been known as to testify on her behalf; she was not allowed to testify herself, nor did she present a confession; she was not learn her Miranda rights; and she or he was “illiterate” as to her constitutional rights, The Northwest Herald reported.

Wilbrandt wrote in his ruling, that witnesses had been known as on her behalf and protection attorneys introduced “wide-ranging proof” of her historical past of drug abuse and substance abuse remedy. She additionally offered a prolonged assertion addressing her “long-standing historical past of each prescribed and unlawful drug use,” the choose wrote.

Wilbrandt additionally dismissed as “with out benefit” Cunningham’s declare that her 35-year jail sentence is “merciless and weird punishment.”

Cunningham filed the handwritten petition from jail with out the assistance of an legal professional.

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