She won't serve even close to 20 years. I read her for 4 years, and she was a GREAT actress. She put on an EXCELLENT front, NO ONE suspected she could intentionally harm her own child. She will go to Prison, and she will be a quiet, obedient, good girl.. and she will parole in a few years, max. And since Rafferty has been by her side the entire time, when she gets out, she WILL be back in her kids lives. I'm not sure about Madison, as she is with her bio father and I don't know how he feels about all this. But Rafferty has been by her side through this entire ordeal, and has fought for her to avoid prison time, so I have no doubt he will take her back into his home, with Julien and Dakota.

20 years solid w/ no chance for parole would have been a great sentence. But I am certain she won't serve even close to that. :-/

I don't think 20 years enough. And whether they send her to prison, or a pschiatric hospital (which really is probably more what she needs), 20 years will never be enough for what she did. Lets face it, she will not do 20 years.

She doesn't need a psychiatric hospital because MBPS is not a mental illness (see my other comment). So unless she has some other undisclosed severe mental illness (like severe depression), prison is absolutely the correct place for her.

Just blows my mind that a parent/caregiver could do that. I have to agree 20 years isn't enough just due to the fact that she can get parole. If it was a solid 20 with out parole, then maybe it would be enough. *shakes head* I just don't get some people.

Thats kinda my point Mindi.

I think she should rot in hell as well - what she did is beyond despicable, but I dont know how many KNOW about this condition. Its real and it exists - I have seen a lot about it and its an awful awful thing.

Saw one doco where a mother fed her daughter elevated levels of salt. No one found out until well after the child died.

i'm amazed she got 20 years. i kinda felt like they were going to be soft on her. i guess i'm more used to the shit useless punishments people seem to get for horrible crimes these days. we've gone from one extreme to another. used to be you'd be burned alive or beheaded for the most ridiculous things, now days it seems that you can commit the most disgusting of crimes and barely get prison time.

And yet a certain young Australian is serving 20 years behind bars for smuggling drugs (debatable I guess)...AND there's more chance of the aussie serving all 20 years than this woman who could have potentially killed her own child. I don't know, I know different countries, different laws, etc etc but it just seems crazy that someone who was causing physical harm to her own child is only being sentenced to 20 years AND she may not even serve the full term?!

I don't know about the American legal system so it may be different over there...but anyway..I was going to say that last week in class we were discussing the James Bulger case and somehow we got a bit off topic (like I am now) everyone in this class thought that prisons were changing to become more like rehabilitation centres or actual "correctional" facilities..but apparently its the COMPLETE opposite (here in Australia anyway), apparently things are going to complete opposite way, so once upon a time they were "correcting" and helping people learn from their mistakes and so forth, but now not so much. I guess with this little digression from the topic I mean, MAYBE if she is getting serious help and has to see therapists and so forth I would have more faith in her 20 year sentence. But if she's just going to sit there and think about what she's done, I don't think that's enough.

I guess there is some relief in knowing she may not be able to reproduce by the time she gets out - but hey, there are people who have become parents at a lot older...so don't rule it out completely!!!

In the UK, you can only claim insanity as a defence if you can prove you did not know what you were doing was wrong. I'm not sure what the US version of insanity plea is. However, she clearly DID know what she was doing was wrong, or she wouldn't have tried to cover it up.
More telling is that she originally plead not guilty, but changed it to guilty once it actually came to trial. She knew she didn't have a hope in hell of getting off with it - and certainly, in the UK, pleading not guilty and then being found guilty leads to harsher sentencing.

To me, what's she done to that child (and potentially her other children - I never actually read her blogs) is exploitative and permanently damaging, just as much as if she'd sexually abused them. It's not just that she deliberately caused injury to get attention from medical sources (the classic MBPS presentation), but that she PIMPED that injury and illness to garner further attention from the world at large.

I doubt she'll serve close to the full 20 years, but it's not an unfair sentence. It perturbs me more that her husband remains loyal. I hope that when she is released, child protection take appropriate action if the children are still minors.

@Pagan: I agree with u 100%!! She knew what she was was doing b.c she even made a stupid fckn OBVIOUS comment about "u might see me in the news soon, hahaha" and I'm glad RED FRAGGLE cleared everything up by saying MBPS isn't a mental illness!

@Bee: she shaved her daughters head? That's so disturbing how a "parent" will go that far...

What she needs is to get sterilized! That woman has no business having kids. EVER! I believe that some people needs Yo be sterilized.

Ahhh stupid iPod. Damn auto corrector.

*needs to be sterilized