RICHMOND, Texas - The woman who kept seven special needs children locked up in a filthy bedroom at her home was sentenced Friday to 35 years in prison.
Paula Sinclair, 55, entered a guilty plea on four first-degree felony charges for injury to a child-causing serious bodily injury.
Authorities said Sinclair and her boyfriend, Allen Richardson, kept the children, ages 13 to 16, in horrific conditions for more than a decade. The two were arrested in November 2016.
Officials say the children were all adopted by Sinclair and her previous husband when the children were toddlers, along with an eighth child, who died in 2011 while in her care.
After they were found in the filthy conditions, the children were treated for malnourishment, dehydration, bed bug bites and other issues. Investigators say they were fed only rice and beans twice a day since they were babies. One of the children suffers from Down Syndrome and was wearing a dirty diaper when he was removed from the home.
The children were rescued from the home in the Long Meadow Farm subdivision two days before Thanksgiving. All seven were found locked in a room on the second-story of the large home.
Those children were present in court for the plea, and three of them delivered statements to Sinclair after her sentencing.
“These children are our heroes,” Prosecutor Terese Buess said in a statement. “They took care of one another as best as they could under absolutely unimaginable circumstances. We all have so much to learn from their amazing spirits.”
Sinclair will not be eligible for parole until she has served at least half of her sentence.