Woman Sentenced to Life in Murder of Grandson
A 55-year-old Lakewood grandmother was sentenced Wednesday to spend 31 years to life in prison for the torture-murder of her grandson.
In December, 1989, sheriff’s deputies found 4-year-old Daniel Hillman unconscious, beaten and tied up on the floor of the apartment of his grandmother, Theda Rice. The child died at a hospital an hour later. On June 25, a Norwalk Superior Court jury convicted Rice of his murder.
Two months before his death, Daniel and two siblings were put in their grandmother’s custody by an Iowa court that determined the children were being abused in their parents’ home. The children’s mother was Rice’s daughter.
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