Elizabeth Escalona Guilty: Mom Seeks Leniency For Woman Who Glued Kid's Hands
10/09/12 06:36 PM ET EDT Huff Post Crime
DALLAS — A Dallas woman who admitted beating her 2-year-old daughter and gluing her hands to a wall is "not a monster" and deserves probation, the child's grandmother told a judge Tuesday.
Elizabeth Escalona faces from probation to life in prison, and prosecutors are seeking a 45-year prison sentence. She pleaded guilty in July to felony injury to a child. Police say the 23-year-old mother attacked Jocelyn Cedillo in September 2011 because she was mad about potty training problems.
Police records show that Escalona's other children told authorities she kicked Jocelyn in the stomach and hit her with a jug of milk. They said Escalona then glued Jocelyn's hands to the wall with a type of strong adhesive commonly known as Super Glue.
Jocelyn suffered bleeding in her brain, a fractured rib, multiple bruises and bite marks, and was in a coma for a couple of days. Some skin had been torn off her hands, where doctors also found glue residue and white paint chips from the apartment wall.
"Only a monster would glue her daughter's hands and give her a brain injury," prosecutor Eren Price said Tuesday during the sentencing hearing.
But the toddler's grandmother, Ofelia Escalona, said her daughter "made a mistake. She's not a monster. She needs help." Ofelia Escalona tearfully asked the judge to sentence her daughter to probation, saying she could be "fixed" and
