Mother Sentenced to 25 Years

Woman Had Admitted Killing Adopted Russian Daughter

For the murder of her 2-year-old adopted Russian daughter, Peggy Sue Hilt will serve 25 years in jail, under a sentence imposed yesterday by a Prince William County judge.

"I think your conduct, at its core, is inexplicable, completely inexplicable," Circuit Court Judge William D. Hamblen said. "The child's death was not the product of a single act, a single blow. Her injuries were the result of a course of conduct over an extended period of time."

And only Hilt, he added, knows the extent of it.

Hilt, 34, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in March after telling police that she punched, kicked and choked Nina Hilt at their Wake Forest, N.C., home during a rage in July. The child died a day later in Prince William, where the family was visiting friends.

"I hurt Nina," Hilt told authorities at the time. "I choked her, and I hit her and hit her."

The Prince William case has affected other U.S. families hoping to adopt. Russian officials initially called for a moratorium on U.S. adoptions after the death of Nina, who was the 14th adopted Russian child killed in the United States. Several Russian journalists were at the courthouse yesterday.

As Hilt stood in the courtroom awaiting her sentence, she struggled to talk. When asked whether she had anything to say, she paused for several minutes and then uttered, in a barely audible voice, "I'm sorry doesn't even come close . . . " before breaking into a mumble.

"She prepared to make a statement," her attorney, William Stephens, said afterward. "The emotion of the event would not allow her to do it."

Stephens described Hilt in court as a woman without a criminal record who was besieged with many issues when she killed Nina, including depression, an addiction to alcohol that she hid from her husband and problems bonding with the child. A medical evaluation found that Hilt was not likely to kill again.

"She needed help," he said.

But Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert told the court, "Some people you just can't help."

He recited Nina's injuries: bruises on her face, on her rib cage, on her small intestine, her skull, and so on. Before dying of blunt trauma to the abdomen, the child survived for a day, he said.