A Texas stepmother shook and sobbed uncontrollably on the stand Thursday as she desperately insisted to a jury that she wasn’t responsible for torturing and starving her stepson to death.
Miranda Casarez’s crocodile tears did little to sway the panel, which hit her with a 25-year sentence for the gruesome death of 4-year-old Benjamin “Benji” Cervera.
The Texas woman, 25, took the stand after the jury had found her guilty the day before of injury to a child by omission causing serious bodily injury, a first-degree felony, San Antonio Express-News reported.
Casarez claimed she was under her abusive husband’s thumb when she forced him to drink urine in toilet water, hot sauce and even hand sanitizer, and eat bread that had dirt and flowers smashed in it
The boy weighed just 28 pounds when he died in August 2017, just one month shy of his fifth birthday.