Woman Given 25 Years for Torturing, Killing Daughter

A lesbian who conceived a child through artificial insemination was sentenced Tuesday to 25 years to life in prison for torturing and murdering the 18-month-old girl.

“The child was no longer a toy they wanted to play with anymore,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders said in sentencing 24-year-old Tivia Strother, whose lover also was convicted in the killing.

Strother was convicted of first-degree murder and torture in the April 5, 1992, killing of her namesake, Tivia Smith.

A separate jury convicted Lisa (Kevin) Smith of involuntary manslaughter, but deadlocked on the torture count. She is expected to be retried on that charge later this summer.

“There were only two people in the universe who could have done what was done to this child,” the judge said.

Pounders detailed some of the evidence that was presented to jurors in the couple’s four-week trial--that the toddler was emaciated like “a concentration camp victim” from being starved, and had been forced to stand in a corner for eight hours at a time.

Prosecutors contended that the women would dunk the child’s legs in icy water afterward to make them stronger, so she would be able to stand for longer periods of time.

The youngster also was forced to eat only oatmeal or grits, and autopsy reports showed the girl’s mouth was damaged from being force-fed with a metal spoon.