Mom Gets 34 Years in Prison For Locking Girl in Closet

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – A Kansas City woman whose daughter was 10 years old and weighed just 32 pounds when she was rescued from a closet has been sentenced to 34 years in prison.

The Kansas City Star reports that the mother screamed after she was sentenced Friday for endangering, abusing and assaulting the girl. Police officers found the girl barricaded in an apartment closet in June 2012 while responding to a child abuse hotline call.

The Associated Press isn’t naming the mother to protect the child’s identity.

Prosecutors said the girl didn’t attend school or receive adequate medical care. They argued the abuse left her so weak that she had a heart transplant in 2013. Defense witnesses said her heart disease could have had “a vast number of causes.”