Bucks mom who kicked 2-year-old to death gets 12 to 40 years
Kayla Moore, 24, "lost it" when her daughter had a tantrum.
A Bucks County mother who kicked her 2-year-old daughter to death was sentenced Monday to 12 to 40 years in state prison.
Kayla Moore, 24, pleaded no contest in the April 2016 incident. in which she kicked Athena Wolfe on the head and body after getting mad at her for throwing tantrums. The girl underwent emergency surgery but died in the hospital the next morning of blunt force trauma.
Moore, who psychologists said had an "eggshell"-like composure and had been raised with "great deprivation," did not seem to accept full responsibility for the murder, said Bucks County Court Judge Rea B. Boylan, according to a news release from the District Attorney's Office.
"No recognition was given of the suffering she imposed," Boylan said. She said the blows to the toddler's head, back, shoulder, neck, spine, and pancreas were "vicious."
Moore initially told authorities that her daughter had hit her head on a door, the District Attorney's Office said. After she called an ambulance, she told police she "lost it."
Moore had another daughter living in the apartment, who shared the bed with Wolfe. Moore slept on the floor. She had another son who lived with his father, and had given a fourth child away after birth.
Moore will receive mental health treatment in prison.
"And what upsets me the most is that it all could have been avoided if Ms. Moore had only asked for help," wrote Wolfe's great-grandmother in a victim-impact statement read in court.