"LP" - 10 yo; 32 pounds/ Accused: Mother-Jacole Prince and Marcus Benson (BF) - Kansas City MO

32-pound, 10-year-old found locked in Mo. closet

KANSAS CITY, Mo.
(AP) — A Kansas City woman was charged Saturday with abusing her
10-year-old daughter who weighed just 32 pounds when she was found
locked in a closet that reeked of urine.
The 29-year-old woman faces charges of assault and child abuse and endangerment
in Jackson County Circuit Court.
The Associated Press is not naming the mother to protect the child's
identity. Prosecutors are requesting that bond be set at $200,000.
Officers freed the girl after responding Friday morning to a call to a child
abuse hotline. Neighbors told police that they didn't know the
malnourished child taken from the public housing complex even lived there.
When officers first
arrived, two women told the officers that the mother had left about 20
minutes earlier with two girls, whom they described as "clean and well
fed," a Kansas City officer said in the probable cause statement.
A social services worker said there should be three children at the home.
But the women insisted, "No, we have lived here for several years, and
she only has two daughters that stay here, and we have never seen the
other girl, but we heard she stays with the father or an aunt," the
probable cause statement said.
Officers ultimately made their way
into the apartment, where they found a portable crib pushed up against a
bedroom closet, which was tied closed. The officers asked if anyone was
inside, and a child's voice answered "yes," the probable cause statement said.
The girl told officers that her mother took her sisters out to breakfast,
but she didn't go because "she messes herself."
The girl was transported to a Children's Mercy Hospital, where she was
diagnosed with multiple skin injuries. Hospital staff said she had
gained just 6 pounds since she last was at the hospital six years earlier.
The girl told detectives who interviewed her at the hospital that her mother puts her
in the closet "a lot," that she doesn't get to eat every day and that
she "does not want to go back home anymore." The girl also said she gets
in trouble "because she keeps peeing on herself" and her mother will
"punch her on her back real hard," according to the probable cause statement.
The mother was arrested later Friday and the two
younger children were placed in protective custody. The mother told
police she doesn't let the 10-year-old leave the house because she knows
the girl is malnourished and would "get in trouble if someone saw her."
The mother's boyfriend, who is not the girl's father and hasn't been
charged, said he hadn't seen the girl in about a year. He said that when
he asked about her, the mother told him she was with her aunt or in her
room because she was in trouble. He said he never knew the mother put
the girl in the closet or "he would have done something about it," the
probable cause statement said.
Mike Mansur, a spokesman for the Jackson County prosecutor's office,
said the mother hasn't said why she singled the girl out.

http://news.yahoo.com/32-pound-10-old-found-locked-mo-closet-001500033.html

Why are so many children being starved to death?

Her name should be front page news so anyone with info will come forward. Taking and keeping her from her mother is the only protection she needs. The public is on the poor little girl's side.

Mother Charged with Abuse of 32-pound 10-year-old Daughter

A mother in Kansas City, Mo., has been charged with three crimes stemming from the dramatic case of a little girl locked in a closet. Jacole N. Prince, 29, was charged with assault, child abuse and child endangerment.
The Kansas City Star reports detectives and a social worker from the Missouri Department of Social Services responded to an anonymous call.
Police approached a barricaded closet. An officer asked "Is anyone in there?" A faint voice said "Yes."
Inside was a 10-year-old girl. At a hospital, health care staff determined the girl weighed 32 pounds.
Named "LP" in police reports, the girl was wearing toddler-sized
clothes when she was found. The shirt was size 2T and pants were size 4T.
The closet was barely big enough to fit the apartment's hot water heater, according to KSHB. Detectives located the girl because of a strong odor of urine.
LP said she hadn't eaten in two days. LP doesn't get to sleep in a bed.
The mother acknowledged to authorities she could "be in trouble" if
authorities knew about the malnourishment of the girl. LP told police
her mother punishes her for "messing herself."
Children's Mercy Hospital records indicated the girl was treated in 2006
when she was 4. At the time, she weighed 26 pounds.
Neighbors thought no one was home because Prince took her two
children out for breakfast. Prince was arrested at her boyfriend's residence.
Prince has two other daughters ages 2 and 8. Both were in excellent
health and are in protective custody. LP continues to be hospitalized.
The boyfriend claims he didn't know about the deplorable living
conditions of the third daughter. Her weight was one-third the size of a
normal 10-year-old, according to KSHB.
Prosecutors have requested bond be set at $200,000. The Associated Press
reports the boyfriend hadn't seen the oldest girl in about a year. He
told police had he known the girl was living in a closet, "he would have
done something about it."
Neighbors who lived at the public housing unit for years insisted
Prince had only two daughters. The same neighbors said Prince told them
the third girl lived with an aunt or the father.

http://news.yahoo.com/mother-charged-abuse-32-pound-10-old-daughter-122800063.html;_ylt=A2KJNTtBRedPhTQAJ2XQtDMD

Two little girls in a Kansas City apartment
complex had perfectly braided hair, neighbors said Sunday, and were
clean, happy and, if anything, "spoiled."
But the girls, ages 2 and
8, had a secret: a 10-year-old sister who weighed just 32 pounds when
she was freed Friday from a locked closet that reeked of urine.

"We are all still shocked," neighbor Aishah Coppage, 28, said Sunday. "We never knew there was a third child."

Officers freed the girl,
who will turn 11 later this summer, after responding Friday morning to a
call from a child abuse hotline. The neighbors - including one of
Coppage's daughters and a niece - watched as the girl was carried to an
ambulance wearing a dingy white, toddler-sized shirt and no shoes.

"She was real skinny," said 14-year-old Kelisha Parrish, Coppage's niece.

The mother, who lives in
public housing, faces charges of assault and child abuse and
endangerment in Jackson County Circuit Court. The Associated Press is
not naming the mother to protect the child's identity.

Mike Mansur, a spokesman
for the Jackson County prosecutor's office, said he didn't know if the
29-year-old woman had an attorney. Janet Baker, the woman's attorney in a
previous case, didn't immediately return a call Sunday seeking comment.

The woman's boyfriend has
been questioned but is not charged. He is not the father of the
10-year-old, but is the father of the two younger children, who are in
protective custody.

"You could never assume
anything was going on from the way they looked," said Coppage, who has
lived next door to the family for three years. "They seemed spoiled to
me because I never saw them get disciplined. It seemed like they didn't
want for nothing."

The closet where
authorities believe the 10-year-old spent much of her time backed up to
Coppage's stairwell. Coppage said she never heard any banging on the
walls or cries for help, but added that music was always coming from the
neighboring apartment.

"They had birthday parties for the other two girls," she said. "Everything that a normal person does, they did."

Coppage said the woman
never mentioned the older girl, and that the woman never let her younger
daughters outside unless she was supervising them.

Coppage said her own
children sometimes played with the neighbor girls on the wooden deck,
but never went inside their apartment. Coppage also said the only people
she saw going inside her neighbor's apartment were the woman's siblings
and boyfriend.

The woman made some money braiding hair, but always did it on the steps outside her apartment, Coppage said.

She said that when the
woman's utilities periodically were shut off, the woman would take the
two younger girls and stay with a downstairs neighbor or her sister.

"So the whole time, the baby had to be in here," she said.

According to the probable
cause statement, the mother told police that she didn't let the oldest
girl leave the house because she knew she is malnourished and would "get
in trouble if someone saw her."

Mansur, the prosecutor's spokesman, said the mother hasn't said why she singled the girl out.

The girl, who was taken to
Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, told detectives she gets in
trouble "because she keeps peeing on herself."

Authorities have not
released the girl's name, and the hospital declined to provide an update
on the girl's condition Sunday without her name.

Because of what has
happened, Coppage is thinking about asking to be moved to a different
unit, adding that her 12-year-old daughter is having a tough time.

"She don't even like to be here," Coppage said. "She is scared."
http://www.kfvs12.com/story/18865689/mo-mom-charged-after-10-year-old-found-in-closet

Neighbors of girl trapped in closet didn’t know she was there
Nearby residents said they had no clue a tiny 10-year-old was trapped in a closet in the midst of their close-knit apartment complex.

By MARÁ ROSE WILLIAMS, The Kansas City Star
Posted on Mon, Jun. 25, 2012 10:43 PM

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/25/3676027/neighbors-of-girl-trapped-in-closet.html#storylink=cpy

A week ago on Father’s Day, residents in a cluster of 24 apartments in the Watkins Court development gathered outside to celebrate.

Music filled the courtyard. Children laughed together. Adults played cards and everyone filled their stomachs with barbecue.

“We didn’t know that ... locked in the closet in apartment 11, a child was starving and soaking in her own urine and feces,” said Jeaniea Ricks. “It just makes you sick.”

On Monday, the child’s mother, 29-year-old Jacole Prince, appeared in Jackson County Circuit Court on charges of assault, abuse of a child and endangering a child’s welfare.

Authorities on Friday found Prince’s oldest daughter, age 10 and weighing 32 pounds, barricaded in the closet. Police and state child welfare workers went to the two-bedroom apartment in the 1300 block of Highland Avenue after someone made a child abuse hotline call.

Prince wasn’t home when officers entered her apartment. The closet was tied shut with rope or shoestrings and blocked by a crib filled with shoes and blankets. According to court documents and law enforcement officials, the girl, “very small for her age” and seriously malnourished, spent a “substantial” amount of time locked in the closet. She wasn’t allowed regular meals or access to a restroom and, she told police, when she peed her pants her mother would strike her in the back really hard.

Prince appeared calm and expressionless in court Monday. In a barely audible voice, she asked for a public defender to represent her. Judge Margaret Sauer set Prince’s bond at $200,000, cash only, and scheduled her to return to court on July 12.

The little girl, who turns 11 next month, remained in a Kansas City hospital.

“I want to get a stuffed animal or something and take it up there to the hospital for her,” said Julia Legget, who has lived in an apartment below Prince for three years. “I just want her to know that we didn’t have a clue she was there. We never saw that child. We knew Jacole had another child, but she told us the child was living somewhere else.”

Another neighbor said Prince told her the girl’s father had been a drug abuser and had died. Another said Prince told her the girl was living with the child’s father.

Police said they had not been able to confirm whether the father is alive. Prince’s boyfriend regularly stayed at the apartment, neighbors said; they knew when he was there because he always played music “very loud.”

The boyfriend, who has denied knowing that the child was confined to the closet, hasn’t been charged in the case. However, prosecutors have not ruled out further charges because the investigation is ongoing.

Neighbors said they were shocked Friday when they learned about the little girl in the closet, identified in police and court documents as “LP” but whom neighbors now call “that baby.”

Prince has two other children, daughters ages 3 and 8. Police took them into protective custody when their mother was arrested Friday. Investigators said they didn’t know why the 10-year-old girl apparently was singled out for abuse. They also don’t know whether the significant amount of time she apparently spent confined caused any physical or developmental delays.

Prince “took care of the other two little girls,” Ricks said. “They were kept immaculate.”

Legget, whom neighborhood children call “Ms. Ann,” said the youngest daughter often came to her house “to hang out.”

“She would knock on my door and say, ‘Ms. Ann, come out and talk to me.’ We would sit here sometimes and just watch television. She was my buddy.”

Legget said that one night the little one, with her mother and the 8-year-old, spent the night with her because Prince and her boyfriend were not getting along.

“I told her if she ever got in a predicament that she could come to me,” Legget said she told Prince that night. “I would look after the girls. That lady came in my house and told me she was scared. She never said a word about that other baby. This is just unbelievable. I want to ask her why.”

When Deborah Harris heard the charges against Prince, she had a hard time reconciling the woman accused of abuse with the loving mother Harris knew.

Harris, a family friend, babysat for Prince’s now 8-year-old daughter when the child was an infant. Harris said Prince was a good mother to the baby. LP, a toddler then, tagged along with Prince only a few times.

She didn’t appear to be malnourished or underweight then. She was a beautiful little girl, Harris said.

Harris said Prince told her that LP lived with a female relative. Harris assumed the child was still living with the relative until the news about LP broke on Friday. That’s when she learned that the relative died about five years ago.

Kiana Smock, whose apartment is separated by a wall from the Prince apartment, said she has known Prince about four months. Her 7-year-old and Prince’s 8-year-old attend a Kansas City district school together and are friends.

“She has beautiful daughters. Those girls were always clean and respectful. I thought she was a good mother,” Smock said. “She and I hit it off right away. And we were kind of close.

“Jacole didn’t go to work. She hardly ever went anywhere. She was always sitting outside, smoking cigarettes morning, noon and night. Even when it rained she was sitting outside.”

Neighbors who have lived at Watkins Court for four years said Prince told them she had lived there about five years.

Neighbors watched each other’s children go off to school, return home in the afternoons and play in the courtyard until after dark. They never saw a third Prince child playing outside or going to school.

The last time the girl was enrolled in school was more than five years ago, when she was a kindergartner, according to Kansas City Public Schools records. A district spokesperson said she was enrolled at Woodland Elementary from August 2006 to April 2007.

Prince often borrowed tissues, cleaning supplies and other household items from Smock. But that wasn’t unusual. Neighbors said they were close and were always in and out of each other’s apartments.

“But Jacole didn’t let anyone into her apartment,” Smock said. “None of us have been inside. Not even the exterminator could get through her door.”

Smock said she was at a grocery store Friday with Prince when a neighbor ran in to tell them police were at Prince’s apartment and asking questions. She said Prince, with her two girls and two bags of groceries, left the store with the neighbor but didn’t go back to the apartment.

Smock said she cried the whole night after police found LP locked in the closet. She recalled that she’d heard tapping sounds against the wall coming from Prince’s apartment on several occasions. She thought it was the two girls she knew about playing a game. Now she thinks it was LP. “I can’t even sleep thinking about it,” she said.

She and other neighbors said if they had known, they would have done something. “If she had come to us and said she needed help, any one of us, all of us, would have helped her,” Ricks said.

“But they sat out here and partied with everyone like everything was OK and the whole time they had that baby in the house locked up.”

Now, she said, neighbors are even more vigilant about watching the children. If a child isn’t smiling, they want to know why.

“We are all very angry.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/25/3676027/neighbors-of-girl-trapped-in-closet.html#storylink=cpy

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —

The boyfriend of Kansas City woman whose 10-year-old daughter weighed
just 32 pounds when she was rescued from a closet remained at large
Thursday, one day after he was charged with child endangerment.

Neighbors had long suspected Marcus R. Benson played more of a
role than he initially claimed after a call to a 24-hour child abuse
hotline led authorities to the family's apartment June 22. Inside a
locked closet that reeked of urine was the girl, weighing less than half
of what a typical child her age weighs.

The girl's mother, whom The Associated Press isn't naming to
protect the girl's identity, was charged the next day with assault,
child abuse and child endangerment. She has pleaded not guilty and
waived the right to a preliminary hearing during a court appearance
Thursday. Her attorney, public defender Curt Winegarner, declined to
comment outside the courtroom.

Immediately after the girl's discovery, Benson told police he
didn't live in the apartment, and said that he often visited to see his
2- and 8-year-old daughters, but hadn't seen their half-sister in about a
year, according to the probable cause statement filed in the mother's case.

Benson said that when he asked the mother about the 10-year-old,
she told him she was with her aunt or in her room because she was in
trouble. He said he never knew the mother put the girl in the closet or
"he would have done something about it," the probable cause statement said.

But a couple days after the 10-year-old was discovered, longtime neighbor Aishah Coppage said she was skeptical.

"I know he knew," she said last month, adding that he had keys
to the apartment, changed clothes there and was always there when Coppage got off work.

Julie Hamilton, a spokeswoman in the Jackson County prosecutor's
office, said the probable cause statement in Benson's case won't be
released until he is arrested. Online court records don't list a lawyer
for Benson, and Benson has not spoken publicly about the case or the charges.

After his initial interviews with police, he was released while
authorities continued an investigation that culminated in the two counts
of child endangerment.

"The first thing he did when he got out of jail was to come over
here," Coppage said last month. "You could hear him ranting and raving
because he was mad we were talking to the press and the police and
everything. I don't care about his anger because I believe he knew.

"He kept saying, `Why am I supposed to give a damn about what she do to her child? It's not mine.' "

She also said the couple had a volatile relationship and she
sometimes could hear them fighting next door. Her phone wasn't accepting
new messages Thursday.

According to the probable cause statement, the mother told
police she didn't let the girl leave the house because the child is
malnourished and she would "get in trouble if someone saw her."

It's unclear how much time the child spent in the closet. In the
probable cause statement, she told police that her mother put her in
the closet "a lot."

The couple's two younger children have been placed in protective
custody. The 10-year-old girl was hospitalized after police found her,
but it is unclear if she is still in the hospital.

http://www.telegram.com/article/20120712/APA/307129993

I believe this story goes with this one:

http://www.justice4caylee.org/t19317-jane-prince-10-yo-and-32-pounds-charged-mother-jacole-prince-kansas-city-mo

Ginger you are so right. Very happy this is not another starved child.
What a very sad story though; this dear little girl will hopefully go to a loving home now and get the hugs she so deserves.

Thanks for having my back friends!
It was a late night, I think!

Why aren't these people charged with attempted murder? If you tried that kind of treatment on a soldier you would be a war criminal.

We need to change our laws and protect our children.

Stores like this just makes my heart and soul cry.

William

Police have arrested the boyfriend of a woman whose 10-year-old
daughter weighed just 32 pounds when she was found locked in a closet at
a Kansas City apartment. Police Sgt. Stacey
Graves says Marcus R. Benson was arrested Thursday in Independence, Mo.
He was charged July 11 with two counts of child endangerment.
The
girl's mother has been charged with assault, child abuse and child
endangerment. The AP isn't naming the mother to protect the girl's
identity.

Authorities
responding to a call to a child abuse hotline found the malnourished
girl June 22. She was barricaded inside a closet that reeked of urine. Benson told police he hadn't seen the girl in a year. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.
http://nab.broadcastnewsroom.com/article/Moms-boyfriend-arrested-in-Mo-closet-abuse-case-2113672

Man Pleads Guilty in Malnourished Child Case

Posted on: 3:40 pm, October 19, 2012
by Jason M. Vaughn

KANSAS CITY, Mo. –  A Kansas City, Missouri, man pleaded guilty on Friday in connection to a case of a malnourished girl found in the closet of an apartment.

Marcus Benson, 35, pleaded guilty to one count of child endangerment. A second child endangerment charge against Benson was dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

In June, a malnourished 10-year-girl was found in a dark, filthy closet of an apartment in the 1300 block of Highland by police acting on a tip. Benson and the girl’s mother, 29-year-old Jacole N. Prince, were arrested and charged in the case.

Benson agreed to serve seven years in prison if he violates a five-year probation period. During that probation, he cannot have contact with the victim or other children under 17, must comply with all directions of Family Court and must complete a probation-approved parenting class.

Prince pleaded not guilty to charges of assault, child abuse and child endangerment in the case. She is set to go on trial next June.

http://fox4kc.com/2012/10/19/man-pleads-guilty-in-malnourished-child-case/

Probation Violation Lands KC Man 7 Years in Jail

Posted: Oct 10, 2013 4:38 PM by The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY - A 35-year-old Kansas City man whose girlfriend is accused of imprisoning her malnourished daughter in a closet has been ordered to spend seven years in prison for violating terms of probation.

The Kansas City Star reports Marcus Benson pleaded guilty last year to child endangerment after authorities found a 10-year-old girl in a Kansas City apartment. She weighed 32 pounds, less than half the average weight for her age.

Benson told police he hadn't seen the girl in about a year, but prosecutors said he had regular contact with her and knew about the abuse.

Benson agreed to a seven-year prison term if he violated terms of probation, which required him to stay away from children younger than 17. Prosecutors say he was around a friend's children in April.

http://www.komu.com/news/probation-violation-lands-kc-man-7-years-in-jail/

Jacole Prince pleads guilty to abusing daughter locked in closet

January 8
By LAURA BAUER and JUDY L. THOMAS, The Kansas City Star

Standing shackled before a Jackson County judge, the Kansas City woman whose emaciated daughter was rescued from a locked closet in 2012 kept most of her answers Tuesday morning to a short “yes” or “no.”

No, Jacole Prince doesn’t think she has a mental illness. Yes, she is guilty of failing to get medical treatment for her 10-year-old daughter, who weighed just 32 pounds when authorities found her 18 months ago.

What was supposed to be a hearing to set Prince’s trial date instead became a venue for her pleas of guilt.

She conceded that prosecutors had enough evidence for a jury to convict her of first-degree assault and child abuse, so with her public defender at her side, Prince entered pleas known as Alford pleas on those counts. As for the third felony charge — endangering the welfare of a child — she pleaded guilty.

“Do you want me to accept your guilty pleas?” Judge John Torrence asked Prince, 30.

“Yes,” she said softly.

Though she addressed many questions, Prince did not elaborate or try to explain what had happened to her daughter, known only as LP, in the years before the girl was pulled from the closet. Some of that could come at Prince’s sentencing, which is scheduled for April 25.

Public defender Curtis Winegarner told the judge that he and Prince had discussed using mental illness as a defense but decided that her condition did not rise to that level.

“However, that does not mean that mental illness will not be a factor at the sentencing,” he said.

LP was rescued June 22, 2012, when a social worker and a police officer responding to a state hotline call discovered the girl in the closet. Her story shocked the community and prompted a battle over the release of records after child tragedies.

The Missouri Department of Social Services finally released her file to The Star nearly a year after LP was found. The documents revealed that the girl was first removed from her mother’s care in February 2006 after Prince told medical personnel that she withheld food and water from her daughter to keep her from going to the bathroom so often.

In March 2007, family court officially reunited LP with her mother.

The records show she soon vanished from sight. She stopped attending kindergarten in April 2007, and there was no indication that anyone ever reported her absence to the state.

Documents also indicate that Prince never received a psychological evaluation after LP was removed from her home in 2006.

Prince’s pleas didn’t come easily Tuesday morning. Initially, after a short consultation with Winegarner, she appeared unsure whether she wanted to make the three guilty pleas.

“Miss Prince, is that what you want to do this morning?” the judge asked.

Prince thought for a moment and then shook her head. “No.”

Torrence called for a brief recess so Winegarner could speak with Prince.

When they returned about 15 minutes later, Prince was ready to proceed.

Assistant prosecutor Trisha Lacey spelled out the plea agreement and laid out some of the evidence the state would have presented at Prince’s trial.

When authorities found LP, the girl told them that her mother sometimes locked her in the closet and forced her to sleep there, Lacey said. She was not allowed outside.

At the hospital, Lacey said, LP was diagnosed with severe chronic malnutrition.

“Medical personnel will testify that although she weighed approximately 32 pounds, 7 ounces when she was brought in on June 22, 21 days later when she was weighed, she had gained weight so that she now weighed 47 pounds, 3 ounces,” Lacey said.

Though no one described how the girl is doing today — and state officials will provide no updated information — prosecutors gave extensive details about LP’s condition and prognosis when she first was found.

LP suffered from anemia and vitamin and mineral deficiencies, Lacey said, and the girl had developmental delays because of isolation, malnutrition and a lack of stimulation.

“In addition, it was subsequently determined that she had suffered heart damage,” Lacey said. “Her heart was in heart failure, and this was all a direct result of the severe malnutrition that she had suffered at the hands of the defendant.

“And in the spring of 2013, the victim in this case was required to get a heart transplant…”

That was the first official acknowledgment that LP had to have a new heart. The Star reported on the girl’s transplant in August after listening to dozens of hours of Prince’s jailhouse phone calls.

When Lacey finished, Torrence turned to Prince and asked about her pleas to each charge. Prince could have faced life in prison for the first-degree assault alone, but prosecutors agreed they would seek no more than a 20-year sentence for all the charges.

Prince left the courtroom Tuesday with her head down and did not speak as she was escorted back to jail.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/07/4734387/jacole-prince-pleads-guilty-to.html#storylink=cpy

Judge withdraws Jacole Prince’s guilty plea in case of severely malnourished daughter

Posted on: 9:04 am, February 12, 2014
updated on: 10:59am, February 12, 2014
by FOX 4 Newsroom

Erpt:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A judge has set aside a mother’s guilty plea after she contacted him and said she never intended to plead guilty to two of the three felonies she was charged with in connection to the abuse of her daughter.

According to online court records, Circuit Judge John Torrence withdrew 30-year-old Jacole Prince’s guilty plea after she sent him a post card saying she never intended to plead guilty.

In addition to sending a postcard to Torrence, Prince reportedly sent a 42-page letter to the Kansas City Star saying she pleaded guilty only after her public defender Curtis Winegarner forced her to do so. Winegarner has not responded to the Star’s requests for comments.

Read more: http://fox4kc.com/2014/02/12/judge-withdraws-jacole-princes-guilty-plea-in-case-of-severely-malnourished-daughter/

Jacole Prince’s case will be assigned to another judge

February 18
By LAURA BAUER, The Kansas City Star

A week after a Jackson County judge withdrew her guilty pleas in a child abuse case that shocked Kansas City in 2012, Jacole Prince was back in the same courtroom Tuesday.

Although the appearance was listed on the docket as a plea hearing and Circuit Judge John Torrence said when court began that he understood another negotiation was in the works, Prince backed away from agreeing to anything. She spoke so softly to Torrence that she couldn’t be heard by spectators in the courtroom.

All that could be heard was Torrence’s response: “If you’re asking me to appoint you to another lawyer, I’m not going to.”

Torrence then assigned Prince’s case to the presiding judge, who will reassign it.

As a shackled Prince left the courtroom and was led back to jail, she was asked whether she had anything to say. Prince mumbled an unintelligible response.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/18/4831934/jacole-princes-case-reassigned.html#storylink=cpy