Texas mom sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the murder of her bedridden young child

A Texas mother was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday after she pleaded guilty to the 2020 murder of her daughter, KTRK reported. The mother reportedly left her 7-year-old child alone while she went out to a local bar.

Lauren Kay Dean pleaded guilty to capital murder and will spend the rest of her life in prison after authorities accused her of failing to provide her daughter, Jordynn Barrera, with necessary medical care.

According to a local newspaper, the Bay City Tribune, Dean pleaded guilty to the charges to avoid the death penalty.

In addition to the life sentence, Dean was sentenced to another 20 years in prison for two counts of abandonment and endangering a child.

In 2020, then-26-year-old Dean left her bedridden daughter alone with two younger siblings, a 5-year-old and a 3-month-old, while she went out to a bar.

The 7-year-old child was previously diagnosed with Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. She was non-communicative and required a feeding tube.

At approximately 2:36 p.m. on January 31, 2020, police arrived at Dean’s home to conduct a welfare check. At that point, Dean had returned home from the bar to care for her children. The mother allowed officers to enter the residence to show them that her children were fine, but police found the 7-year-old deceased.

“During the check, officers located a deceased seven (7) year old female child inside the residence along with the mother of the child,” the Bay City Police Department posted to Facebook at the time of the incident. “The seven (7) year old child was bedridden due to medical conditions.”

According to the criminal complaint, Dean failed to provide medically necessary round-the-clock care to her daughter, which ultimately resulted in her death.

Dean’s other children were removed from the home, and she was booked into jail on three second-degree felony charges for the abandonment and endangerment of a child, placing the child in imminent danger of bodily injury. Dean was later charged with the capital murder of her daughter.