The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday reinstated the murder convictions of Lindsey Lowe, the Hendersonville woman accused of killing her twin babies after secretly giving birth in the bathroom of her parents’ home.
The court reversed a Sumner County judge’s decision in 2022 to grant her a new trial because of juror bias.
Lowe was booked into the Sumner County Jail on Friday and posted $75,000 bail the same day, a jail official told The Tennessean. Despite her murder convictions, she was allowed to post bail because her attorneys plan to appeal her case to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
In March 2013, a Sumner County jury convicted Lowe, who prosecutors said hid her pregnancy from her family and fiancé and then smothered her twin babies shortly after they were delivered in a toilet in 2011. Her mother discovered the body of one of the newborns. the next day in a laundry basket, prosecutors said. The jury found Lowe guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated child abuse.
She received an “effective life sentence,” the Court of Criminal Appeals wrote.
In September 2019, Lowe argued on appeal that she did not receive a fair trial because one of the selected jurors heard about the case on the news and admitted that she had already formed an opinion about Lowe’s guilt. According to the court’s opinion, Lowe’s father testified that he saw the allegedly biased juror “fist pump” when she learned she had been selected.
Sumner County Judge Dee David Gay said he could not ignore the “possibility of prejudice” against Lowe and ordered a new trial in October 2022. The state appealed.
The Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Gay’s decision and reinstated Lowe’s convictions, ruling that Gay should not have heard the appeal because Lowe had missed the deadline for filing the appeal. Gay had made an exception for Lowe because several attorneys had given her an incorrect deadline.
The appeals court still analyzed the merits of the argument and ruled that Lowe’s attorneys failed to prove that the juror was actually biased.
Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EvanMealeft.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Lindsey Lowe’s convictions in twin birth deaths reinstated
