A British aristocrat and her boyfriend, who sparked a nationwide manhunt when they went on the run from police, have been found guilty of manslaughter over the death of their newborn daughter.
Constance Marten, 38, and Mark Gordon, 51, who had lost custody of their first four children, began evading authorities in Jan. 2023. Seven weeks after a placenta was found inside their burned-out car on a highway in northwest England, they were detained by police near Brighton, on the south coast of the U.K.
Two days later, the body of their newborn daughter Victoria was found in a shopping bag in a disused shed, underneath dirt and trash.
On Monday, the pair was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence at the Old Bailey in London, after a retrial following an original hearing in March. Both had previously been found guilty of perverting the course of justice after hiding the child’s body, but a jury could not reach a verdict on the outstanding charges.
Marten shook her head as the verdict was read out, while Gordon—who was previously jailed for rape in the U.S.—remained stony-faced, according to the BBC. “It’s a scam,” the aristocrat said from the dock.
Speaking about her family, the court heard privately educated Marten say that she “never really had a strong connection with them.” Asked whether her background was one of privilege, she said, “Financially yes, emotionally not at all.”
She added that her “dream” was to have “at least” seven children.
The British broadcaster also revealed that she and Gordon were convicted of child cruelty at their first trial in 2024, a fact that was under a reporting embargo until now.
The judge said the pair will be sentenced at a later date. They had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The case’s chief prosecutor said they “have shown little remorse for their actions.”
“No child should have had its life cut short in this preventable way,” Jaswant Narwal added. The prosecution had argued that the child was either smothered or died as a result of the challenging weather conditions.
Marten, who comes from a wealthy family of landowners with links to the British Royal Family, said that she went on the run because there was “no way I was going to part with my child.”
She had previously spoken of being traumatized “by what happened with the other children.”
However, the jury agreed that it was she and Gordon’s actions that caused baby Victoria, who was born in Dec. 2022, to pass away in frigid winter conditions.
Marten told the jury that she had fallen asleep with the child inside her zipped-up coat, inside a tent. She said that when she woke, the child was dead.
“I just knew she wasn’t alive and I felt responsible because I was holding her so my assumption was that I had fallen asleep on her,” she told the jury.
The prosecutor in the case argued that their failure to report Victoria’s passing was an attempt to “hide potential evidence and cause of death.”
The couple claimed that Victoria died on Jan. 9, but a witness said she saw Marten and Gordon later that month, and that they heard the child crying.
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