A heartless mum who admitted to beating, whipping and waterboarding her three children has been sentenced to 78 years in prison.
Lakechia Schonta Stanley, 34, pleaded guilty to a total of 34 charges, including several counts of assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
The shocking scale of abuse only came to light in 2011 when one of the children, then 10 years old, told her school librarian she had a severe pain in her arm.
She was taken to hospital were doctors established that she had been hit with such force that the blood supply to her limb was restricted, reports SLT Today.
It later turned out that Stanley, from St Louis, US, beat the young girl with a baseball bat because she hadn’t cleaned the kitchen quickly enough, prosecutors said.
The youngster then revealed Stanley also beat her youngster sister aged 8 with the bat because she spent too long in the shower.
Further interviews with the girl revealed a shocking pattern of abuse that included them being whipped with electrical cords, forced into scalding or freezing showers, and beaten with several different blunt objects.
Medical examinations showed the three children had significant scarring all across their bodies – and suffered severe emotional trauma from their ordeal.
Prosecutors described the prolonged pattern of abuse as “systematic torture” and on Friday, Stanley was sentenced to 78 years in prison.
During sentencing, assistant circuit attorney Tanja Engelhardt said: “What the defendant did to three of her own children far exceeds the definition of child abuse and amounts to systematic torture.
“She was supposed to be their mother, the one person they could trust. Instead she became a symbol of betrayal and fear, using every tool at her disposal to beat and torture her own innocent children.”
Her husband Andrew Stanley, who pleaded guilty last year to related charges, was sentenced to 160 years in prison.
Source: Mirror.co.uk