An Irvington mother was sentenced Wednesday to 45 years in prison for the killing of her 8-year-old daughter. Watch video
NEWARK -- A Superior Court judge Wednesday sentenced an Irvington woman to 45 years in prison for the 2011 killing of her 8-year-old daughter, and starving and beating of the girl's two siblings.
Krisla Rezireksyon Kris, 34, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a charge of aggravated manslaughter in the killing of her daughter, 8-year-old Christiana Glenn, who died in May 2011.
Superior Court Judge Michael L. Ravin also imposed separate 10-year sentences for two counts of endangering the welfare of child, and ordered that each of those sentenced run consecutively to the 25-year prison prison term. Those charges were in connection to the beating of Rezirekyson's two other children, Solomon and Christina, who were 6 and 7 respectively, when their sister died.
Rezirekyson also received additional 10 years sentences for each of more than a dozen other endangerment charges, but Ravin ordered that those terms run concurrently with the 25-year sentence. In March, a jury found Rezirekyson guilty of 19 charges, but acquitted her of the most serious charge of murder.
Ravin said Rezirekyson must serve at least 20 years and three months of the sentence before she is eligible for parole. She will get credit for the time she was in jail since her arrest in 2011.
'Justice was served': Mother found guilty
Before the sentences were announced, Rezirekyson and her lawyers argued that Rezirekyson was a single mother with a diminished mental capacity who had fallen under the influence of a preacher at her church who advised her how to treat her children.
"I was brain washed," Rezirekyson said, referring to the instruction from the preacher. "I never intended to hurt (the children). I love my children. They were the most important things that I had in my life. I am truly sorry for my mistakes," she told the judge.
Ravin, in announcing the sentence, said the mother never mentioned the preacher when she was questioned by police.
The judge outlined treatment of the children, including having their ankles tied with rope that was then tied to a radiator, and being left that way for hours every day while Rezirekyson went out.
The children were starved, beaten with electrical cords and forced to kneel on metal grates while weights were put on their heads.
The mother applied her own painful treatments to the children's wounds, the judge said.
"What could be more depraved than putting salt in a child's open, festering wound, than putting gasoline on a child's wound? But, that's what she did," Ravin said.
After discovering Christiana Glenn had stopped breathing, the mother prayed over her for 90 minutes before calling 911, officials said. Ravin said that the medical examiner found bite marks from cock roaches on the girl's body.
Authorities said the girl died from extreme malnutrition and an untreated broken femur.
"The leg died on her body," said Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Dawn Simonetti, who asked the judge for a 50-year sentence. She said the mother failed to get medical aid for her children because she would have been arrested for the abuse.
Simonetti said Rezirekyson was using her divorce and her religious beliefs as excuses for her treatment of the children.
Copy of a 2006 photo of Christiana Glenn, looking at her reflection in a mirror before attending a family wedding as a flower girl. (Family Photo) Rezirekyson's attorney, Adrien Moncur, asked for a 10-year prison term, saying the mother had no prior criminal criminal record, and was remorseful for the death of her daughter. Moncur said the woman struggled as a single mother who came under the influence of a preacher.
"She wasn't strong enough to deal with certain issues, the depression, the isolation," Moncur said.
The lawyers also stressed the role of Pastor Emanyel Rezireksyon Kris, and suggested that he had cast a spell over Rezireksyon Kris, and the woman she lived with, Myriam Janvier, 27. Janvier also faces a charges in connection to Glenn's death. She will be tried separately at a later date.
But, Ravin stressed that the mother never stated that she was responsible for abusing her children.
Prosecutor Simonetti, in making her statement, read a letter from Rezirekyson's daughter, Christina, who had testified during the trial about the treatment she and her brother and sister endured.
"I would like to thank the jury for listening to me and believing me," the girl wrote in the letter. She hoped the judge give her "birth parent" a sentence that would ensure "she never does this to any other children."
In the letter, the girl said to her mother, "I will never understand why you did this to us." However, the girl said the experience would not break her.
"Today, when you go off to prison, I will only look ahead," the girl wrote.
Tom Haydon may be reached at thaydon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Tom_HaydonSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.