Two women, mother and daughter, Gloria Walker, 51, and Krystie Tanner, 27, were sentenced to prison on Tuesday after being convicted of kidnapping a Houston boy when he was 8 months old, hiding him for eight years before he was found, according to the Associated Press.
Walker was sentenced for injury to a child and eight years for kidnapping, to be served concurrently. Her daughter was sentenced to eight years for kidnapping and eight years for a lessor charge of reckless injury to a child, also to serve concurrently. The specifics of the sentencings are still being sorted.
The same East Texas jury convicted them in the 2004 disappearance of Miguel Morin, now 8 years old.
For Walker, she thinks a miscarriage of justice took place.
"Justice is not served," Walker said as she and her daughter were handcuffed and taken away by authorities. "We loved and cared for him."
During the trial, which took place in San Augustine, about 140 miles northeast of Houston where authorities said Miguel lived part of the time during his abductions, prosecutors argued told jurors that Tanner and Walker neglected Miguel, hiding him from authorities and denying appropriate medical care.
They oft-times kept him out of school. Defense attorney rebutted that there was no abduction to begin with, because Miguel's biological mother sold him to the women. They are argued his actual parents never showed any sort of concern for him, refusing to cooperate with authorities.
Walker professed her innocence, saying in her testimony, "I didn't do nothing nothing wrong," saying she rarely even spent time with Miguel. But her daughter Tanner contradicted, telling jurors that Miguel lived with Walker for a long time, adding she never hurt or abused him.
Prosecutors did not present any witnesses during the punishment phase, but did ask jurors for a 25-year-sentence for Walker and an eight-year term for Tanner.
The boy's parents were not in the courtroom on Tuesday. Rudy Velasquez, Walker's attorney, told jurors Miguel's parents, Auboni Champion-Morin and Fernando Morin, did not cooperate with Houston police after the boy was reported missing, and never really showed any concern for their son.
Since the sentencing, authorities said Miguel has been informed about the true identity of his parents
A Houston judge, last month, placed Miguel with Junita and Joseph Auguillard, who have also been taking care of Miguel's four siblings for nearly 10 years under an agreement with Fernando Morin.
