*A Texas mother who disguised a life-size doll as her dead daughter has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for abuse of a corpse.
Tiaundra Christon, 23, traveled from College Station to Houston with her 2-year-old daughter, Hazana Anderson, to visit boyfriend Kenny Hewett, authorities said. The child was sexually assaulted, beaten to death and left in a vehicle for several days before Christon and Hewett dumped the body in a lake, KBTX-TV reported.
Investigators said Christon then reported her daughter missing on Oct. 28, 2018 and carried the doll to pretend it was her child. Surveillance video from a Walmart showed the mother pushing what appeared to be her daughter in a stroller.
Here’s more from PEOPLE Magazine:
The urgent search for little Hazana Anderson took a dark turn after College Station police officers discovered a life-sized doll, dressed in clothing identical to what the mom said her child was wearing, in a trash can across the street from where Christon had parked.
As investigators unraveled the woman’s claims, they learned Hazana had died days earlier and the mother and her boyfriend had dumped the body in a lake.
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The mother later confessed that her child had died at the Downtowner Inn hotel room where she and Hewett were staying, “after the baby suffered abuse from Hewett and Christon.”
The couple beat the child to death with a belt and then attempted to resuscitate her by giving her a bath. Christon told police that she and Hewett also used a hair dryer in an effort to warm her up, but it burned Anderson’s skin.
They put the body inside a plastic bag and hid it in the backseat of her car for three days before disposing of it on Oct. 23. The mother wrapped the bag with rope, and tied a heavy rock to it so it would sink to the bottom of a local lake. A dive team recovered the body.
Jurors deliberated for about 20 minutes before finding Christon guilty on Friday. She was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 20 years in prison.
Hewet received the same sentence in November 2019, after also pleading guilty to tampering with a human corpse.
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