Spokane7
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January 9, 2009 in City
Adriana Lytle sentenced to 62 years
Adriana Lytle is sentenced Jan. 9 for her role in the death of her stepdaughter, 4-year-old Summer Phelps. Adriana Lytle’s husband, Jonathan Lytle, received a 75-year sentence on Jan. 8.
(Full-size photo)
Adriana Lytle received a 62.5-year sentence today for her part in the death of her stepdaughter, 4-year-old Summer Phelps.
Lytle, 34, pleaded guilty last year to homicide by abuse with aggravated circumstances in Summer’s death, admitting she played a part in the six-month cycle of severe abuse that led to the child’s death.
Prosecutors wanted her sent away for 75 years – the same sentence her husband, Jonathan Lytle, received Thursday from Superior Court Judge Michael Price.
Over six months in 2006 and 2007, Summer Phelps was beaten, bitten, shocked with a dog collar, burned with cigarettes, denied food and dunked in cold water after being forced to stand in a bathtub for hours washing urine-soaked clothes. Her red hair was pulled out in clumps, and her body was covered from head to toe with bruises. She died March 10, 2007, submerged in the family bathtub. Emergency room doctors and nurses who treated her testified during Lytle’s trial that it was the worst case of child abuse they’d seen.
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Memere03 on January 09 at 4:24 p.m.
This is such a sad story and both people who were convicted deserve the sentence they recieved. The biological mother should also be charged with “neglect,” this mother dropped her daughter off for a much needed “break” that was supposed to be for one month, and for her own selfish reasons, didn’t ever come back! What kind of mother does that? In the 9 months Summer was in Spokane, how many times did the mother call her and ask her if she was okay? This mother does not deserve the press she is getting as the poor mom who lost a daughter, it should read “mother arrested for her part in daughters death!”
Eli on January 14 at 9:29 a.m.
We don’t really know anything about the biological mother except that she let her daughter stay with the child’s father, trusting that she’d be cared for there. None of us have any knowledge or insight into the reasons why she didn’t get back to reclaim her child. Many things could have affected this, including the current financial crisis which makes travel from Australia extremely expensive. She may not have had the money for the trip. We don’t know if or when she called, and it would be inappropriate to insist that she never called without knowing that she hadn’t. I’m sure she’s already been constantly beating herself up for the decision, and I don’t see any reason for the rest of us to add to that burden. If we want to place blame on others for not intervening, let’s look locally and not hammer someone who was on the other side of the world while this happened.