A Kansas woman will spend nearly two decades in prison for the murder of her adopted daughter — a crime concealed for years before authorities uncovered the truth.
This week, Crystina Schroer was sentenced in Butler County to 215 months behind bars after pleading no contest to second-degree murder, child abuse, making a false writing and theft. The charges stem from the death of 6-year-old Natalie Garcia, whom Schroer and her husband adopted in 2019 and later renamed “Kennedy.”
Natalie vanished in 2020, but officials did not realize she was missing until four years later. Once authorities began searching for her, they discovered her decomposed remains buried in a black plastic bag two feet below an overgrown area of Schroer’s backyard, according to a disclosure order filed in the case. The autopsy determined the death was a homicide caused by “probable suffocation.”…