KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After withdrawing her guilty plea in early January 2014, the Kansas City mother charged with abusing her 10-year-old, appeared in court on Tuesday, Jan. 18.
When asked to enter a plea, Jacole Prince told Judge John Torrence she did not wish to enter a plea, but instead asked for a new attorney. Torrence denied her request and sent the case back to the presiding judge to reassign to a new judge.
Back in June of 2012, Kansas City police found Prince’s 10-year-old daughter, known only as “L.P.,” inside a closet, where the doors were tied together with shoelaces and a crib blocked the front of the doors.
When paramedics rushed the girl to Children’s Mercy Hospital she weighed only 32 pounds. She told detectives she had to sleep in the closet, was not fed every day and could not go outside.
The prosecutor says she suffered from severe chronic malnutrition. As a result of this malnutrition, she developed low anemia, vitamin deficiencies and developmental delays. L.P. also suffered heart damage and heart failure and underwent a heart transplant in the spring of 2013.
The prosecutor says in an interview with a detective, Prince said she locked the child in the closet because she was eating too much food. She said she knew the child was malnourished but did not seek medical help because she knew she would get in trouble.
