​Michelle Lodzinski ​​Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Murder of Son, 5

Michelle Lodzinski was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison for the 1991 murder of her 5-year-old son Timothy Wiltsey. That's the least possible time she could have served, and it's what her attorney, Gerald Krovatin, requested. She was facing life in prison for the first-degree murder.

The Middlesex County prosecutor's office was clearly not pleased with Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves' 30-year-sentencing decision.

"Despite her efforts to conceal one of the most notorious crimes in the history of Middlesex County by killing her son, dumping his remains in a swamp, falsely claiming he was abducted by strangers, and spearheading a desperate search for a child she knew was already dead, Michelle Lodzinski was sentenced to the minimum sentence permitted under the law," read a statement issued by Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey Thursday.

Nieves refused to grant a request by Middlesex County Deputy First Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua to impose life in prison for Lodzinski.

"I'm sure Timmy would not want to impose a life sentence on his mother," her attorney, Krovatin said according to NJ.com, which reported from the courtroom Thursday. His comment drew a sharp objection from county prosecutors.

One juror who attended the sentencing Thursday, Joe Mulvanerton of Old Bridge, told NJ.com he had hoped to see Lodzinski get life in prison. But he then said he was "satisfied she won't see the light of day for 30 years."

This was a Middlesex County cold case that haunted the region and went unsolved for 25 years:

Lodskinki and her son lived in South Amboy and the boy went missing from a Sayreville carnival in May 1991. Lodzinski was long considered a prime suspect, but she was never arrested. Lodzinski originally told police that she last saw her son at the Sayreville carnival and that she had no idea where he went. Nearly a year after his disappearance, in 1992, Timothy's partial remains were found in a marshy area in Raritan Center in Edison, about five miles from where he disappeared. But she was still never charged.

After the murder, Lodzinski moved to Florida, got remarried and had even more children. It wasn't until 25 years later that she was arrested in 2014 and prosecuted for her son's murder.

It was Middlesex County Prosecutor Carey who made the decision to re-open the decades-old cold case and prosecute Lodzinski. In May of last year, a Middlesex County jury of seven men and five women convicted Lodzinski, 49, for murdering her son.

Lodzinski killed the child sometime before she reported him missing from the carnival in Sayreville on May 21, 1991, he said. The boy's partial remains were recovered on April 23, 1992 from a remote section of Raritan Center, an industrial park in Edison.

Lodzinksi failed to address the court room on Thursday, although she was invited to speak. Several people wrote letters on her behalf. One fellow inmate described her as a "den mother" in the Middlesex County jail, and said the judge should be lenient in his sentencing, according to NJ.com.

Lodzinski already spent 884 days in prison, which will reduce her sentence by more than two years.

Past coverage:

Michelle Lodzinski Found Guilty Of Killing 5-Year-Old Son In New Jersey