Sentencing postponed for mon convicted in young son’s death

NEW BRUNSWICK -- A judge has postponed the sentencing of a Florida woman convicted of killing her 5-year-old son in New Jersey in 1991 so he can consider a defense motion to acquit her or grant a new trial.

Michelle Lodzinski was due to be sentenced Tuesday. The Port St. Lucie woman was convicted of murder and faces up to life in prison.

It's not clear when the judge will rule on the motion.

The defense cites what it calls a lack of evidence and the judge's decision to dismiss the jury foreman for undisclosed reasons and replace him with an alternate while the panel was deliberating. The verdict came the next day.

Lodzinski reported Timothy Wiltsey missing from a carnival in Sayreville in May 1991. But she almost immediately became a suspect when she changed her story several times, eventually saying he had been kidnapped.

Lodzinski, who has two other sons in Florida, was charged with murder in 2014, after investigators reopened the case and found witnesses who could identify a blanket found near the boy's remains as having come from Lodzinski's apartment.

No forensic evidence tied Lodzinski or the boy to the blanket or other items found near his remains 11 months after he disappeared. A cause of death couldn't be established due to the deterioration of the skeleton.

Prosecutors painted Lodzinski as a young woman -- she was 23 at the time of his disappearance -- who struggled with jobs and relationships because of the boy and wanted to move on in life without him.

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