Spotlight on Woodbridge Woman's Death in Trial of Abortion Doctor Kermit Gosnell

The trial of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia doctor convicted Monday of murdering babies born alive during abortion procedures, made public the gruesome spectacle inside his filthy, bloody clinic — referred to in the trial as a "house of horrors."     

While Gosnell negotiated a deal Tuesday to avoid the death penalty by agreeing not to appeal, he will be sentenced Wednesday for an involuntary manslaughter conviction in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, of Woodbridge, along with over 200 other lesser charges.

Mongar, a 41-year-old Bhutanese refugee, had settled in the Woodbridge area just months before her death on Nov. 19, 2009.

Mongar and her husband had just come to the United States, after her family was forced to spend two decades in a Nepalese refugee camp. Her husband obtained a job in a chicken factory after they moved to Virginia. But Mongar would lose her life in Gosnell's squalid Philadelphia clinic. 

Mongar traveled to the Women's Medical Society in Philadelphia after several other clinics turned her down, due to her advanced stage of pregnancy. 

The 2011 grand jury report outlines much of the circumstances surrounding the death of Mongar—a mother of three and grandmother of one. 

"When she arrived at the clinic, Gosnell, as usual, was not there," the grand jury found. "Office workers had her sign various forms that she could not read, and then began doping her up. She received repeated unmonitored, unrecorded intravenous injections of Demerol, a sedative seldom used in recent years because of its dangers."

After Mongar stopped breathing, staff called Gosnell in and he attempted to administer CPR. Paramedics were called in, but it took them 20 minutes to exit through the cluttered hallways and out the padlocked emergency door, according to the report. 

Mongar slipped into a coma after cardiac arrest, and died the next day.

Mongar's daughter testified at Gosnell's trial in April that her mother was healthy before the procedure, the Washington Post reported. The family filed a civil suit against Gosnell in 2011, which was settled for almost a million dollars.

Gosnell faces a third life sentence for Mongar's death during sentencing Wednesday.