BRADENTON, Fla. _ Keishanna Thomas will serve 65 years in prison for killing her 11-year-old daughter and hiding her body in a freezer.
Thomas, 31, pleaded no contest Wednesday to second-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and abuse of a dead body.
Thomas could have faced an automatic life sentence had she been convicted of first-degree murder in her upcoming scheduled trial.
Thomas also pleaded no contest to child abuse in the 2015 case related to her then 12-year-old son that prompted the search for 11-year-old Janiya.
At the time of her death, Janiya weighed only 44 pounds, her right leg had been broken for two to fours weeks beforehand, and there were marks on her hands and feet indicative of being tied, according to her autopsy.
Janiya was first reported missing on Oct. 16, 2015, to police by child protection investigators after her mother refused to tell a judge the girl's whereabouts. But those investigators had first noticed her missing on Sept. 25, when they were called to the family's home to investigate allegations of child abuse involving Janiya's older brother.
The story made national headlines after her body was found two days after Janiya was reported missing, inside a cardboard box in a padlocked freezer at Thomas' grandmother's home. Thomas had brought the freezer over under the guise that she was being evicted. But family members grew suspicious after seeing media reports about Janiya being missing. They broke the lock, found Janiya and called police.
Thomas had gone to visit her oldest daughter in foster care between Sept. 25 and Oct. 16, warning her not to tell investigators anything about Janiya. But the girl did, telling them she saw their mother tie Janiya up and dunk her head in water inside the bathroom she was regularly locked in. That bathroom was then cleaned out, the door was open and Janiya was never seen again.
Janiya's brother recalled coming home one day _ believed to be in January or February of 2015 _ to also discover Janiya gone, and the bathroom cleaned out.
Detectives would come to learn how Janiya was locked in a bathroom and starved for months before being killed. Investigators with the sheriff's office Child Protective Investigative Division, which handles all welfare cases for the Florida Department of Children and Families, had not sustained a finding of abuse in the family's home since 2004, however, the same year Janiya was born.
Janiya was last seen at Manatee Elementary sometime in May 2013, and her mother would tell the school district in August that the girl was being home-schooled. It was in June 2014 when she was last seen by officials, when a Safe Children's Coalition case manager recommended closing a services case because Thomas refused to cooperate.
