A North Texas jury has sentenced a 27-year-old man to 55 years in prison for the scalding death of his young daughter.
The Tarrant County jury sentenced Charles Bellamy on Thursday in Fort Worth hours after finding him guilty of murdering 2-year-old Jaz'mine Howard. Bellamy had admitted responsibility for the March 15, 2011, death of the child, but his attorneys had argued for a lesser verdict of criminally negligent homicide.
The sided with prosecutors, who had argued that Bellamy serve at least half of his sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
The child's 21-year-old mother previously testified that she had never seen Bellamy mistreat any of his other eight children. Joy Howard said, however, that once he appeared upset when Jaz'mine had a potty-training mishap.
