Mother gets 99 year sentence for mutilating sons genitals

[Tuffty]

And the award for the most distrubed person of the year goes to....

HOUSTON —  A Houston-area mother convicted of mutilating her infant by cutting off his genitals two years ago was sentenced Monday to 99 years in prison.

But minutes after the jury's sentence was read, Katherine Nadal, 28, yelled out that she did not hurt her son, prompting the boy's father to storm out of the courtroom.

Jurors deliberated for two hours Monday night before returning the sentence, which also included a $10,000 fine. The same jury had convicted her last week of first-degree felony injury to a child.

The jurors chose among possible sentences ranging from probation to life in prison. Nadal, who shook her head as the jury foreman read the sentence, will have to serve at least 30 years before she is eligible for parole.

Prosecutors asked for life in prison. Nadal's attorneys did not request a specific sentence, instead asking the jury to not punish her out of hate or revenge.

Nadal had claimed the family dog, a 6- to 7-pound dachshund named "Shorty" was responsible for mutilating her then-5-week-old son, Holden Gothia, as he slept in his parent's bedroom in March 2007 at their suburban Houston apartment.

But prosecutors said she was high on drugs when she mutilated her son with an unknown sharp instrument. Authorities say Nadal, who had prior drug arrests, tested positive for cocaine, methadone and Xanax after the attack.

Holden survived, but the severed body parts were never found.

After the sentence was announced, Holden's paternal aunt, Patches DeShazo, who has custody of the now 2-year-old boy, read a victim impact statement in the courtroom.

"I am thankful by time you are eligible for parole you will be beyond childbearing years. It makes me crazy to this very day to hear you say I did not hurt him," DeShazo said as she read her statement.

That prompted Nadal to yell back from the table where she sat with her defense attorneys: "I failed him. I did not hurt him."

The boy's father, Camden Gothia, then stood up and yelled to Nadal, "You abused him when he was in the womb," a reference to Nadal having taken drugs when she was pregnant with Holden. Gothia then left the courtroom.

DeShazo and her husband were given custody after his parents relinquished their rights. His father sees him regularly.

After the hearing, prosecutor Tammy Thomas told reporters that Nadal will never admit what she did.

"I don't know if this is justice to merit the damage," a teary-eyed Thomas said. "This is as close as we can get."

Allen Isbell, one of Nadal's attorneys, said he was disappointed that the sentence was "so long."

During closing arguments in the punishment phase of the trial, Thomas told jurors that Nadal had sentenced her child to a life of pain and suffering. "She took his identity as a human being and either flushed it or threw it in a trash can," Thomas added.

Doctors testified that he faces years of surgeries and counseling.

Nadal's attorneys told jurors that nothing they did would help Holden.

"This jury must punish Katie Nadal. That's your job. But what is appropriate? I hope you don't do it out of hate or revenge," defense attorney Skip Cornelius said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,540164,00.html?test=latestnews

I can only assume that most of you reading this thought, like I did, that the son was an adult when it happened. Not so, 5 weeks old. That's just really wrong. Forever scarred for life. Though the claim that 'the dog did it' could have held some water and the mother is an easy guilt figure because of her drug addiction. Perhaps the evidence was overwhelming IDK.

Also found it odd to be specifically 99. Why not 100, or life?

[JFC]

* JFC winces in sympathetic pain for the boy. >_<

In terms of why 99 years and not life, I'm wondering if it might have something to do with parole eligibility. I don't know what the legal/prison rules are in Texas, but it could be that had she been given a life sentence, her parole eligibililty might have been different and she might have been able to get out earlier (here in Canada prisoners who get life are eligible for parole after 20 years, IIRC). At any rate, 99 years is just as good as a life sentence, especially since she has to serve almost a third of it before her first chance to be eligible for parole.

[Tyler_Wood_2005]

Yikes I was cringing, and shaking the entire time I read it...poor kid

[kuno_thunder]

You know its funny how this kind of thing is like "ZOMG that's fuckin' appalling!!" here to us, but a similar practice goes on in Africa to this day, except that its done by just about EVERYONE.  Y'all ever heard of the vaginal mutilation that young girls have to go through without sterilized needles or anesthesia?  THAT has got to suck.  I'd post a link, but that shit's too damn graphic, even for me.  I can't stand the sound of children screaming in pain for no good reason other than "But its tradition in our culture!"  Makes you think about the validity in some traditions just stopping doing fucked up shit, huh?  Religion, anyone?

Ah, there it is again!

[THUNDERDUCK]

Texas state sentencing would have given her an earlier probation, if she didn't get the 99 yrs.

[Kaizer]

That's just horrible.

[tru_harmony]

You know its funny how this kind of thing is like "ZOMG that's fuckin' appalling!!" here to us, but a similar practice goes on in Africa to this day, except that its done by just about EVERYONE.  Y'all ever heard of the vaginal mutilation that young girls have to go through without sterilized needles or anesthesia?  THAT has got to suck.  I'd post a link, but that shit's too damn graphic, even for me.  I can't stand the sound of children screaming in pain for no good reason other than "But its tradition in our culture!"  Makes you think about the validity in some traditions just stopping doing fucked up shit, huh?  Religion, anyone?

Ah, there it is again!

It's fucked up that people mutilate other people

sure, in Africa and some parts of the West Asia they practice genital mutilation for their own reasons, be it religious or traditional... we say it’s fucked up, they don’t think so… they see value in it, we don’t… sometimes things are over simplified with “But its tradition in our culture!” but to them it could be upholding a value, a belief, a hierarchy… It’s not just a spectacle

maybe they haven’t learned of things we know now like 'it fucking hurts!' or ‘you can get an infection with that’ or what not… or maybe they just don’t care because whatever value that ritual represents is more important than that

the ~rest of the world~ is still learning~ from the high and mighty~

in this particular case, however, the mother mutilated her own child for absolutely no reason at all

she is a person living in a society most of us are familiar with and people in this particular ‘learned’ society don’t do shit like this

[kuno_thunder]

It's fucked up that people mutilate other people

sure, in Africa and some parts of the West Asia they practice genital mutilation for their own reasons, be it religious or traditional... we say it’s fucked up, they don’t think so… they see value in it, we don’t… sometimes things are over simplified with “But its tradition in our culture!” but to them it could be upholding a value, a belief, a hierarchy… It’s not just a spectacle

maybe they haven’t learned of things we know now like 'it fucking hurts!' or ‘you can get an infection with that’ or what not… or maybe they just don’t care because whatever value that ritual represents is more important than that

the ~rest of the world~ is still learning~ from the high and mighty~

in this particular case, however, the mother mutilated her own child for absolutely no reason at all

she is a person living in a society most of us are familiar with and people in this particular ‘learned’ society don’t do shit like this

I'm glad someone's saying something about this, because tru has brought up the real thing in question: Is the value of tradition worth the pain and suffering of a child for their whole life?  Some countries have the girls have the junks sewn up almost completely, leaving only enough room for the urine to pass through (very painfully, I might add).  So when the girl has to pee, she just holds it in because its too painful to pass all the ghetto stitches.  Then when its time to have children, the stitches get ripped apart so that the men can have sex with them, and after the baby comes out, they sometimes will stitch them back up yet again.  All in the name of tradition.

Now realistically, can anyone of us who DON'T practice this kind of thing see any value in it?  This is where the word "tradition" gets challenged the most, in places and times where it makes no sense.  I remember the first time I heard about Chinese foot binding.  Women would deliberately break the feet of their daughters to make their feet appear smaller, because it was more attractive to men.  Sure, the women couldn't walk without agonizing pain throughout their legs, but hey, its tradition.  Finally, the Chinese who were educated abroad saw that foot binding to other people was just fucked up, and it made them look like they didn't care for the well being of their daughters.  It also really served no purpose other than the "erotic" fantasies of men.  Personally, that grosses me out.  Just like the genital mutilation in Africa.  Nobody else does it, and they get along better in the world than they do.

[tru_harmony]

like i said, saying that the sole reason is 'tradition' is over-simplification...

last year, i had to report about this in ethics class... so don't look at me for all the details, i've scrapped most of those after graduation...

and don't get me wrong: whatever reasoning they have behind this, there is no real justification in inflicting pain upon others... but it's not simply tradition

in some places they do this to 'insure' that women would not commit adultery

they would not want to have sex at all because it hurts but would have sex with their husbands because it's their duty to their husbands

some women actually want this for themselves because it makes their 'marketability for marriage' higher and for some of them, it is the only way to escape poverty

some other more learned women do not want this because they know of all the consequence of such practices... but these women were few for a long time, of course, because of living in societies where education is usually exclusive to men

but more recently, more women in West Asia have been going to school and they learn of this

this, ladies and gentlemen, is the chance for this culture to progress

but given the patriarchal structure of their society, it might take them many more years before they realize this

..

so yeah...

it's not right

but it's not just tradition compelling them to do this

-- and mind you for some , hopefully few, men, their erotic fantasies are all that matter

~

back to the matter at hand

this woman in question wrecked her child's life

gawd, she cut off his genitals!

and she goes to jail  forever to be fed daily with the taxes of the normal, non-genital cutting people

because it is in our tradition to give just punishment even to the vilest criminals~

in the middle east she could lose her head for harming a male child but that's really inhumane and shit, ne? ... i mean to her... right?

[kuno_thunder]

I heart you tru.  I love your wavelength, we're totally on the same one.  The point is that the women who are willing to do these kinds of things are conforming to a fucked up society.