SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio mother will spend up to 45 years in prison after authorities said she starved two of her children and refused to get them medical care, resulting in one of their deaths.
Stephanie Jimenez was sentenced Friday in two separate cases of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury to two children, according to the Bexar County District Attorney.
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Jimenez pleaded guilty on July 10, 2014, to a charge of injury to a child with serious bodily injury for one of her children. According to the DA, the 21-month-old child survived but only weighed 12 pounds.
She got a plea deal with a 20-year sentence and was then granted deferred adjudication probation for 10 years.
On Oct. 3, 2021, Jimenez called 911 after one of her children was not breathing. When paramedics arrived, they found the 6-year-old child was unresponsive.
An arrest warrant affidavit said Jimenez told officers her child fell and hit her head and then vomited afterward. An officer said Samantha “appeared small and thin for her age.”
“The child was also extremely dehydrated and had both a kidney infection and pneumonia,” the DA said in a news release.
Authorities said the child died at the scene.
Jimenez, a mother of six children, told police she didn’t seek treatment for her daughter because she “had no help,” a previous KSAT article states.
In an affidavit, Jimenez said she locked herself in her bedroom and let her six kids “do whatever they wanted.”
On Friday, Jimenez had her probation revoked in the original injury to a child case involving the first child, and she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She also pleaded guilty to the second case and was sentenced to an additional 25 years.
With both sentences running consecutively, Jimenez will serve up to 45 years in prison.
“I’m proud that we have invested additional resources in our Family Violence Division and strengthened our office’s efforts to protect our children,” said Bexar County Criminal District Attorney Joe Gonzales, “Our children are the most precious and valuable members of our society and must be nurtured and protected.”