Pound Pup Legacy

Beach Child-Killer Will Be Released Aug. 5

The Woman has Served Less Than 6 Years in Prison

July 15, 1993
Kerry Dougherty
The Virginia Pilot

Karen Diehl, the mother of 17 who saw the public's admiration of her turn to shock when she was convicted in her troubled son's death, will be freed from prison Aug. 5.

Diehl, 42, was granted parole Tuesday after serving a little less than six years of a 31-year sentence in the Virginia Correctional Center for Women at Goochland. This was Diehl's first chance for parole. Her hearing was in April.

"I think she has paid a debt commensurate with the with the crime," said her lawyer, Robert G. Morecock. Diehl was convicted in September 1987 of involuntary  manslaughter, abduction, assault and child neglect. Andrew Dominick Diehl was 13 when he died on Oct . 29, 1986. He was one of 13 children adopted by Karen and Michael Diehl, a fundamentalist Christian couple  from Idaho. They also had four biological children The Diehls arrived in Virginia Beach during the spring of 1986, attracting, and apparently enjoying, media attention that focused on the large,  unconventional family living in a converted school bus in a campground.