Theresa Rose Bentaas booking photo from the Minnehaha County Jail.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) — Theresa Bentaas, convicted of first-degree manslaughter in the 1981 death of her newborn, Baby Andrew, is in the Minnehaha County Jail to begin her one-year prison sentence.
In December, Judge Brad Zell sentenced her to ten years after she took an Alford plea in the 40-year-old cold case.
Zell suspended nine years and credited her with 73 days served already.
She reported Saturday to jail.
Bentaas abandoned her newborn baby in a ditch in eastern Sioux Falls in February 1981.
Expert testimony at her sentencing hearing suggested the baby may have been stillborn.
(Liz Ryan, KELO.com News, contributed to this report.)
