Spokane7
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January 10, 2009 in City
Abusive stepmother gets 62.5 years in girl’s death
Adriana Lytle, severely abused as a child herself, was sentenced to 62 1/2 years in prison Friday for her role in a cycle of beatings and torture that killed her stepdaughter, 4-year-old Summer Phelps.
Lytle, 34, pleaded guilty last year to homicide by abuse in the death of Summer, the daughter of her husband, Jonathan Lytle.
Jonathan Lytle was sentenced Thursday to 75 years in prison for the same crime, which child abuse experts testified was the most brutal they’d ever seen. A jury found him guilty of homicide by abuse with aggravated circumstances last fall.
Summer was beaten, burned with cigarettes, shocked with an electric dog collar, denied food, had her hair yanked out and was forced to wash urine-soaked clothing for hours in a bathtub. She died after slipping, exhausted, under the water in the tub March 10, 2007.
While Adriana Lytle tried to revive her, Jonathan Lytle stepped out to smoke a cigarette and took an hour and a half to get her to the Deaconess Medical Center emergency room, according to testimony in his trial.
The lengthy sentences requested by prosecutors and imposed by Spokane Superior Court Judge Michael P. Price were far above the standard sentencing range for homicide by abuse cases. Price said the horrific nature of Summer’s abuse justified sentences that could keep the Lytles in prison for the rest of their lives.
Defense attorneys argued for a sentence of approximately 26 years for Adriana Lytle, saying she had been sexually and psychologically abused as a child but could be rehabilitated. Prosecutors asked for 75 years.
Her sentencing was temporarily delayed because Spokane County jail officials didn’t comply with a Jan. 6 order from Price to allow her to come to her sentencing hearing in civilian clothes instead of a jail jumpsuit. Price ordered her returned to jail to change clothes.
Public defenders John Whaley and Anna Nordtvedt called two psychologists who testified about Adriana Lytle’s childhood abuse and depression and their effect on her ability to be a parent. She also took the stand, saying statements she made to the police shortly after Summer’s death that she was the child’s main disciplinarian weren’t true.
“I was trying to protect my husband … and I’m not trying to protect him anymore,” she said.
Price commented from the bench on her “troubled and difficult” life, which included over a decade of sexual abuse by her father, a suicide attempt and a series of unhealthy relationships with men.
However, Price said, he’d also learned from the experts that she is a “smart person” who had several opportunities to tell nurses who visited the Lytles’ cramped studio apartment that she was overwhelmed caring for an infant and a stepdaughter she resented.
“Never did Ms. Lytle ask for help that was literally on her doorstep,” Price said.
He also noted that her baby, Johnny, had no abrasions or bruises and was thriving – while Summer, sleeping just a few feet away, was “literally dying.”
“You abused and tortured this little girl until she was dead,” Price said as he imposed the long sentence.
Reach Karen Dorn Steele at (509) 459-5462 or karend@spokesman.com.
WSU police investigate third suspicious fire 
POCA on January 10 at 11:47 a.m.
Thank God for the judge, jury and prosecuting attorney, who are all credited with sentencing these two Monster-Baby -Torturing-Lytles to life in prison. However, prison for the Lytles will be like a vacation, compared to the horrific torture and murder that they inflicted upon John Lytle’s little four year old, 45 pound daughter! Summer’s wicked step-mother and evil father will never endure even a fraction of the emotional, physical and mental pain; the fear, sadness, helplessness and torture, that they inflicted upon this helpless, sick little girl, for months on end, which finally resulted in the child’s death.
POCA (Prevention Of Child Abuse)
POCA on January 10 at 12:22 p.m.
Hopefully, other courts in the USA will follow the example of the Spokane Superior Court, and sentence child abusers and/or child killers to life in prison. All to often, child abusers and child killers are given minimal prison sentences, are released from prison, and abuse and/or kill children again. Thus, child abuse and child killing continues. Life sentences for child abusers and/or child killers is a deterent for child abusers and child killers, and would protect other children, from the child abuser’s torture and possible murder.
tammyrisa on March 02 at 1:03 p.m.
After my children’s biological father and I got a divorce we were amicable but once the step mother got in the picture things took a drastic turn for the worse!! Her introduction via a phone call was, “there’s a NEW Sheriff in town and there WILL be changes!” I soon began to notice bruises on my children, and they were constantly sick with rashes headaches, and stomach pains. I kept four years of doctors, school nurses, teachers and police officer reports investigator reports, gal reports. I finally got a restraining order against the step mother but then I relocated to help take care of my mother whose dying and two sheriff’s officers came and took my children against their will for relocating and now my children are living with the step mother and abusive father whom I’ve also had a protective order against for abuse and threatening my life. I have not seen my children since June 29th of last year and the step mother has blocked me and all my family from my daughter’s phone. the evidence is overwhelming and horrifying but since she isn’t a party to the agreement there isn’t ANYHTHING I can do to her !and she is bipolar and is poisoning my children against me not to mention I am scared at the mere thought of what she is doing to them behind closed doors! Her and my ex want to pretend I don’t exist. I have FB messages and documentation to prove everything I’m saying yet nothing is done. I am in fear daily for my children’s life.