Andrea Bradley is sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Glenara. The Enquirer/Phil Didion
Glen Bates showed no reaction as Judge Megan Shanahan gave him the sentence for the murder of his daughter. The Enquirer/Cara Owsley
At the start of Glen Bates murder trial, he tried to fire his lawyers. The judge admonished him for not listening to their suggestion of a plea. In the end, he received the death penalty. The Enquirer/Liz Dufour
Glen Bates was found guilty after prosecutors said he swung his 2-year-old daughter, Glenara, into a door frame "like a baseball bat," killing her last year. The Enquirer/Cara Owsley
Glen Bates was found guilty in murder of 2-year-old daughter. Here are the prosecutor's closing arguments. The Enquirer/Cara Owsley
Glen Bates is being tried for aggravated murder for the death of his two-year-old daughter, Glenara. He ten-year-old stepdaughter testified she saw him bang her head into the wall the day before she died. Liz Dufour
Officials say 2-year-old Glenara Bates died after being starved and tortured by her parents. The police interview with her father, Glen Bates, was released to The Enquirer. The Enquirer/Carrie Cochran & The Enquirer/Kevin Grasha
Mother sentenced in death of two-year-old daughter
Glen Bates sentenced to death
Judge to Bates: 'Understand this'
Jury recommends death sentence for father who killed young daughter
Closing arguments by prosecutor in Bates murder trial
"I think she was dead." Ten-year-old testifies about the death of her two-year-old sister
Glenara's dad: I bit her, I dropped her
Andrea Bradley pleaded no contest in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, but she was also a victim of abuse, her attorneys and a jail chaplain said Wednesday.
The sentence imposed by Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman – 15 years to life in prison – effectively ended a case that began in nearly three years ago when Bradley carried her daughter’s cold, limp and emaciated body into Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
A police detective said it was the worst child abuse case he'd ever seen.
Bradley’s former boyfriend, Glen Bates, is on Ohio’s Death Row, having been convicted of aggravated murder. According to testimony, he slammed Glenara into a wall the day before she died in March 2015.
Bates “had complete control of” Bradley’s life, said Jack Kennevan, a chaplain at the Hamilton County Justice Center who has known Bradley since her arrest.
Both Kennevan and one of Bradley’s attorneys, Will Welsh, said Bates abused her emotionally and physically.
More: Walnut Hills mom enters no contest plea in death of 2-year-old daughter
She also is intellectually disabled, someone who Welsh said struggled to carry out daily activities, like balancing a checkbook or even providing food for her children.
Glenara was one of Bradley’s six children who lived in an East Walnut Hills house with both her and Bates. He was Glenara’s father.
Welsh described a welfare check by social workers who found that the family was eating food from a refrigerator that hadn’t been working for at least three days.
“You have an abuser coming in and taking advantage of someone who is intellectually disabled, who put her in this position,” Welsh said.
Glenara was the only child targeted for abuse, he said. It’s not clear why, although both Welsh and Kennevan suggested it was because Bates was her father. The other children were fathered by other men, they said.
More: Glen Bates found guilty in murder of 2-year-old daughter
Prosecutors said Bradley shared responsibility for what happened to Glenara.
The girl was kept in a bathroom or in the basement, prosecutors said. She weighed 13 pounds at the time of her death, and her body was covered with bruises, scars, burns and marks consistent with being whipped with a belt.
There was a gash in her forehead that prosecutors said had been sewn together with regular thread.
Cincinnati police Detective Bill Hilbert told Ruehlman it was the worst child abuse case he’s investigated in his 17 years. Hilbert said when he first saw Glenara’s body at the hospital, he thought she was six months old.
Ruehlman said the last months of Glenara's life were "a living hell.”
“And you were there. You knew,” he told Bradley.
Bradley's history with Hamilton County Job and Family Services dates back to 2007.
She has been diagnosed as bipolar and has a history of marijuana use, records show. She was accused of physically abusing at least three of her other children. One child tested positive for marijuana after being born, court records say.
In January 2013, days after Glenara was born, Bradley agreed to give up custody, records show. Glenara was placed in foster care with her other siblings.
JFS and a juvenile court magistrate eventually agreed to allow Glenara and her siblings back into Bradley's home. Records show Bradley underwent drug treatment, parenting education and mental health therapy. Caseworkers had been making regular visits to the home. One visited the home three weeks before Glenara's death.