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Texas mom gets 99 years for gluing toddler to wall, beating her
[Updated at 4:22 p.m. ET] A Texas mother who super-glued her 2-year-old daughter's hands to a wall and beat her over potty training problems was sentenced Friday morning to 99 years in prison, a Dallas County felony records department district clerk said.
Elizabeth Escalona, 23, will be eligible to ask for parole in 30 years. She pleaded guilty in July to a charge of first-degree injury to a child, a crime punishable by anywhere between probation and life in prison.
"This mom was pure evil, and her children are better off without her," prosecutor Eren Price said after a judge delivered Friday's sentence. "Her five kids now have a chance to lead a productive life."
Escalona’s attorney said that the sentence was excessive and that an appeal would be filed, CNN affiliate KTVT reported.
Escalona's daughter Jocelyn Cedillo was less than two months shy of her 3rd birthday in September 2011 when Escalona used a powerful adhesive to glue her hands to a wall and beat her because of potty training troubles, authorities said. Three other children belonging to Escalona, who was pregnant at the time, witnessed the abuse, according to Dallas County district attorney's office spokeswoman Debbie Denmon.
The child urinated on herself during the ordeal, during which she was hit in head and kicked in the groin, among other forms of abuse, Denmon said.
Oefelia Escalona, the defendant's mother, testified during her daughter's sentencing hearing this week that she found the girl and took her to a hospital. Once Jocelyn was there, medical authorities noticed severe bruises to her face and head, as well as a severe brain injury that led to her temporarily being in a coma.
At this week's sentencing hearing, prosecutors showed pictures of Jocelyn's hands and bruised body and forehead.
"The entire picture was very shocking," said Dr. Amy Barton, then a child abuse pediatrician at Children's Medical Center of Dallas, choking back tears on the stand on Monday. "I see a lot of children, and this was one of the most shocking cases that I have seen."
Escalona asked for leniency during her sentencing hearing this week, saying she behaved like a monster but deserved a second chance, KTVT reported. Her mother asked the judge to sentence Elizabeth to probation, according to KTVT.
Price initially offered a plea bargain of 45 years in prison, but Escalona turned it down, the district attorney's office said.
Price said that the judge, after learning more about Escalona during the hearing, was justified in sentencing her to more time.
"Elizabeth Escalona wasn't sorry for what she did to 2-year-old Jocelyn. Elizabeth Escalona felt sorry for herself," Price said. "Those tears on the stand were for her and not for the toddler she tortured."
An attempt to reach Escalona's attorney for comment Friday was not immediately successful.
Before this incident, Escalona had been investigated by Texas Child Protective Services but never arrested or charged, Denmon said.
The child welfare agency put all of her children in foster care after Jocelyn was taken to the hospital. All five of them, including Jocelyn, are now in the custody of their grandmother, Oefelia Escalona.
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The father(s) should be tracked down an held financially accountable. The kids should be removed from area and the extended family and fostered/adopted. Their grandmother raised this miscreant mother. They are doomed!
i think life in jail, which is basically what she got is way too severe. she absolutely should lose her children and not be allowed around children, however i think 5 years in jail would be more than enough. what she needs is education. not life behind bars at the taxpayers expense.
Don't kid yourself, a single mother with 5 kids at age 23 is already coasting the taxpayer a bundle. Giving her the long sentence she deserves will at least possibly keep her children from growing up to be like her.
You forgot two zeros: 500 years. I do not care about the taxes.
This kid has to leave the family now. No grandmother, are you kidding me?
This is a dysfunctional family and the grandmother cannot be trusted: who taught Elizabeth Escalona to make so many kids to have food stamps or whatever? Look at her face: you can understand immediately her profession. Does a father exist? I mean an Escalona father. I think he does not. OMG!
Great, now the kids are with the grandmother who raised the monster mom. These kids should be placed in a safe foster home where people who want them can take care of them.
I can't believe my tax money is going to support a monster like her for the rest of her life.
From the photograph the woman just looks like someone who would kill for 10 centavos. Probably from a drug cartel family.
23 year old with 5 kids.
How in the world did no one tell her it is 5 too many for her.
Let me take a guess. She is on welfare, food stamps and un-employment.
Good Luck Texas. I am sure there is many more where those came from.
Can you say " America, that is why we are broke".
Typical US – overeacting as always. Taking children away and 1 year prison would have been enough. US is a country of wild eyed fanatics. They do not kill people (yet) for tearing quran pages but their mentality is not much different.
Taking the cildren away and give her one year? Are you nuts; she deserves to be glued to a wall and starved to death.
#1) No child ever deserves that kind of treatment #2) This demon should never have kids again in her custody and #3) it's a bout damn time the justice system stuck it up the perpetrator's a–. Disgusting, inhuman devils belong dead or locked away forever with the key thrown away. Hopefully that little baby fully recovers. Hope the jail mates take care of that evil being.
Hope they glue her frickin hands to her cell wall
I'm wary of people using the term "evil" to describe people. They always come off as Dark Age zealots without an ounce of sense... lo and behold this story takes place in Texas. The closest America has to a Dark Age preservation site. This woman deserves harsh punishment. I'd even say a severe beating that leaves her mentally handicapped the way she did to her daughter. But 30-99 years? That's a bit extreme. 10 years and a severe beating would suffice.
...and the racist remarks carry on.
She looks like a gang banger.
Hell of a lot of good jail is going to do to someone like her.
She will probably join a gang in jail.
Why not give your kids away for adoption . Why torture herself and
her kids.
Well, if a picture tells a thousand words... we just need to look at her picture.
Death penalty would have also been just, and cheaper.
99 years.. LOL. I just love to watch barbarian justice.. Do you stone or behead people as well?
This woman is a threat to society at its most fundamental level. She viciously and mercilessly tortured one of our weakest and most vulnerable members. She wouldn't even have stopped until this girl might have been killed had not someone intervened. This person is disgusting and has no place in a civilized society. She deserves everything she got.
...cause she'd be a candidate... That woman deserves every second of that sentence, kicking a two year old in the head and groin? What a waste of space.
You won't find enlightened discourse on our prison system here. It's political suicide to bring up what is wrong with it, and it is socially accepted because it keeps reality away. A crime was committed, and the woman may very well be a menace (beyond the crime), but when a large portion of the country blindly participates in things like confirmation bias, and supports a presidential candidate that has made lying a commodity, well, what can you expect?
TEXAS, OFC.....