Mom Gets 20 Years for Killing Disabled Daughter

Jennifer T. of Chicago brought this to my attention.

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/mom.sentenced.daughter.2.677408.html

Mom Gets 20 Years For Killing Disabled Daughter

ST. CHARLES (STNG) ― A west suburban woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday after pleading guilty to the 2006 slaying of her disabled daughter. Betty Whitten Friday agreed to a sentence of 20 years in exchange for a guilty but mentally ill plea to second-degree murder, a Class 1 felony. Kane County Circuit Judge Philip DiMarzio accepted the plea, recommending that Whitten receive treatment for mental illness while in prison, according to a release from the Kane County State's Attorney's office. On April 3, 2006, the 59-year-old Whitten fatally stabbed her disabled daughter, Nyakiambi Whitten, 34, three times with a butcher knife about 11 a.m. She then placed her daughter's body in the family's 2002 Hyundai and drove it through a guardrail near the Prairie Street Bridge in St. Charles. The car landed on its roof in Mount St. Mary's Park along the Fox River, the release said. At age 2, Nyakiambi Whitten was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and developmental disabilities. Betty Whitten will be given day-for-day credit and credit for time served in jail since her April 3, 2006, arrest.