Baby’s Death Ruled a Non-Capital Case

New Jersey teenager Amy Grossberg will not face the death penalty if she is convicted of murdering her newborn infant in a motel room when her case comes to trial in May, a judge ruled in Wilmington. State Superior Court Judge Henry duPont Ridgely agreed to a prosecution request to drop a first-degree murder charge against the 19-year-old Bergen County woman and try her instead on a second-degree murder charge. Grossberg and her former high school sweetheart, Brian Peterson, were charged with murdering their baby boy in November 1996. The body was found in a motel trash bin near the University of Delaware campus in Newark, where Grossberg was a student.