Mom who killed child loses rights to son, 3

Author: Kevin Diaz; Staff Writer

Janet Ostlund, a Robbinsdale woman convicted of shaking her 2-year-old daughter to death, has had her parental rights to her 3-year-old son terminated.

In a 2-1 decision to be filed today, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that Ostlund, now serving a nine-year prison term at the state prison for women in Shakopee, "is palpably unfit to be a parent."

The decision will end her supervised prison visits with her son Michael, who lives with his father, David Ostlund. The Ostlunds were divorced in 1988, a year after Janet Ostlund's conviction for second-degree murder. Michael was born while she awaited trial for the murder.

Judges Edward Parker and Daniel Foley cited a "pattern of abuse and refusal to admit her guilt," as the principal factors in their decision to terminate Janet Ostlund's parental rights. "This child's safety is paramount," they said.

In a dissenting vote, presiding Judge Roger Klaphake described the majority's decision as "an unwarranted rush to judgment," since the boy lives with his father and not in a foster home.

He argued that while trial testimony established that 2-year-old Maria Ostlund had suffered a pattern of abuse before she died in July 1986, authorities failed to show that the mother is beyond rehabilitation in the foreseeable future.

The Appeals Court decision overturning a lower-court ruling was a victory for Hennepin County officials, who had filed a petition to remove the second child from Ostlund's custody the day after he was born in September 1986.

Ostlund's conviction for the death of her daughter came in January 1987 and was unsuccessfully appealed. She has consistently maintained that the baby girl, an adopted child born in El Salvador, was injured in a fall from a couch onto a linoleum floor.

Prosecutors contended that Ostlund's explanation was not consistent with the girl's severe brain injuries, and that it appeared that she had been shaken to death.

Since her conviction, Ostlund has refused to cooperate with any rehabilitation program that requires her to admit that she killed her daughter, according to court records.

A key issue in the termination case was whether Ostlund could undergo successful treatment without such an admission. The two judges voting in the majority noted, "She still refuses to acknowledge her culpability in the death of her child even though she has no Fifth-Amendment problem of self-incrimination, since appeals of her criminal conviction have been exhausted."

But in his dissent, Klaphake argued, "The only `rehabilitation program' Ostlund failed was one unilaterally established by the county. In fact, it was less of a plan designed to reunite Ostlund and (Michael) than to obtain an admission of guilt from Ostlund while she was exhausting her appeal rights."

With the usual time off for good behavior, Ostlund would be released from prison at the end of 1992.