An Indiana foster mom was sentenced last week to prison for the death of 10-year-old Dakota Levi Stevens last April.
Jennifer Wilson pleaded guilty in October to reckless homicide in the incident, in which the 340-pound woman sat on the 90-pound boy for at least seven minutes after he fled to a neighbor’s house begging her to adopt him, WXIN reported.
Dakota was airlifted to a hospital in South Bend with severe trauma and died on April 27, two days after the incident.
Wilson fled and was ultimately arrested in Michigan in July after an autopsy determined that the boy died from mechanical asphyxia and that he suffered organ and soft tissue damage, liver and lung hemorrhaging, and other injuries, as CrimeOnline reported.
Wilson told investigators that the boy had been acting up all morning and fled the house when asked to do his chores. But the neighbor said he ran to her home and said he had been hit in the face and that his foster parents wouldn’t let him call his case manager.
Investigators viewed surveillance vides that showed Wilson lying across the boy, including several short clips and one that lasted for nearly seven minutes in which the boy is not moving at all.
Wilson was sentenced on Friday to six years in prison with one year suspended, according to WXIN. Her foster home license was suspended in June.
