A couple walked out of a courthouse in protest last week as the man who confessed to killing their pregnant daughter received 34 years in prison on a plea deal.

Key Takeaways:

• In 2023, Abdul Mboob called police to tell them he had strangled Anastasia Paul, who was pregnant with his child.

• He had stopped taking his medication for a mental health disorder.

• He agreed to a plea deal and was sentenced to 34 years in prison.

• Paul's family felt his sentence was too short and left the courtroom in protest.

The Backstory:

On July 17, 2023, Abdul Mboob, 26, killed Anastasia Paul, 22, who was pregnant, at their apartment in Vernon, Connecticut. They also had a son who was one year old at the time. Mboob called the police himself and admitted to strangling her to death. In the affidavit, he explained that he had recently stopped taking his medication for a mental health disorder and that he had been ‘seeing spirits’.

"In the moment, I wanted to kill her," Mboob told police. "Now that it is over, I am remorseful for what I did and wish it never happened."

Mboob was charged with murder the following day along with first-degree strangulation, tampering with physical evidence, interfering with an investigation, and making a false statement. Most of those charges were eventually dropped, and he pleaded guilty to murder and risk of injury to a child.

The Details:

He was sentenced to 34 years in prison on July 28, which Paul's family felt was not enough. They left the courtroom in protest before the sentence was given. In addition, the judge chose to keep Mboob out of the courtroom during the sentencing, but Paul's family felt he should have been made to face them in person.

“I’m asking you to please forgive me. I made a terrible mistake that I cannot undo, so please forgive me. I am truly sorry,” Mboob said through a recording from his jail cell.

Paul’s family got up and walked out of the courtroom while he was speaking.

“It’s really not fair. He got a 34-year sentence, but we got a lifetime sentence,” Ty Mosley, Paul’s stepfather, told Eyewitness News 3.

Jeanine Lavoy, Paul’s mother, said she wanted a harsher punishment for Mboob. “I would put him away for life. He doesn’t deserve to come out at 50 something years old and come out of prison and see the sunlight. My daughter can never do that again,” she said. 

At the time of the murder, Mboob had just finished serving an 18-month sentence for a probation violation. His criminal record previously included two assaults, a violation of a protective order, and possessing a weapon in a correctional institution.

One of the assaults was in August 2020, when police were called to Motel 6 on Hartford Turnpike, where Paul reported that Mboob had punched her in the face, choked her, and threatened to kill her.

Family members and friends wore purple on the day of the sentencing, a color symbolic of domestic violence awareness. Mosley hopes Paul’s case will draw awareness to this pervasive issue.

“It’s something that needs to be talked about more, domestic violence. More awareness is better. She could’ve been saved, and hopefully someone else could be saved just by us representing her,” he said.

Zoom Out:

According to the CDC, in the United States:

• About 6% of people with a recent live birth experienced emotional, physical, or sexual violence during pregnancy by a current intimate partner.

• Over two-thirds of people who experienced violence by a current intimate partner during pregnancy also experienced it before pregnancy.

• In 2018 to 2019, the homicide rate for women ages 15-44 was 16% higher among those who were pregnant or within one year of pregnancy compared to those who were not.

• Almost half (45.3%) of homicides of women who were pregnant or within one year of pregnancy have been found to involve intimate partner violence.

The Bottom Line:

As US News explained, researchers have found that homicide is a leading cause of death in pregnant women in the United States.