Mother who killed daughter and left remains in storage unit sentenced

A woman who killed her infant daughter in California and dumped her remains in an Arkansas storage unit was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in state prison.

Krissy Lynn Werntz, 34, was found guilty by a Riverside County jury of second-degree murder in April.

Werntz had been convicted of killing her 2-month-old daughter, Montana, in Desert Hot Springs in 2001, according to the Riverside County district attorney.

The baby’s father, Jason Michael Hann, was found guilty of first-degree murder and received the death penalty in February.

The baby’s remains were found in February 2002 after the couple failed to pay the bill for their storage unit and the contents were sold, according to the district attorney’s office.

The purchaser of the unit found the remains while cleaning out a plastic container.

The couple was arrested at a hotel in Portland, Maine, in April 2002. After the arrests law enforcement found that the couple’s third child, a baby boy about 1 month old, had injuries consistent with child abuse, including a dozen rib fractures and retinal hemorrhages, according to the district attorney.

The day after the arrests, police found the remains of another of the couple’s children in a storage unit in Arizona.

That child, a baby boy less than 2 months old, died in 1999 in Vermont. The couple kept his remains in a plastic container for more than a year, authorities said.

Hann was convicted and sentenced to 27 to 30 years in state prison for that baby’s murder. Hann was then brought back to California to be tried for the infant girl’s death, according to the district attorney’s office.

Werntz has not been charged in connection with the death of the baby boy.

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