The Bristow woman accused of helping to barricade her three children behind drywall in March of 2011 was sentenced to 18 months in jail for abuse and neglect Thursday at the Prince William Circuit Court in Manassas.
Christina Dawn Moore, 27, of Loft Court, plead guilty to three felony counts of child abuse and neglect back in October.
At the May 3 sentencing hearing, Judge Richard B. Potter sentenced Moore to nine years in prison for the three charges. However he suspended 2.5 years for each charge.
Moore has already served time in prison since her arrest in Mar. of 2011, and thus has only six months left to serve. She will also serve five years probation.
Moore’s partner and father of the three girls, John Michael Robey, 34, was previously sentenced to three years on each charge, but suspensions of those charges left him serving no actual prison time.
Moore and Robey had allegedly erected a 5-and-½-foot drywall at the doorway of their daughters’ bedroom, preventing the girls, ages 1, 2 and 4 years, from exiting. Moore and Robey were found passed out in an adjacent room when the children were found
The children were rescued when the oldest daughter used her mattress to climb out of the room and ran to a neighbor’s house for help. The neighbors, unable to wake the parents, broke down the drywall to find the girls naked and the room covered in feces and urine.
With the parents passed out and evidence of drug use, the neighbors took the children to their house where they washed and clothed them.
The police arrived and found drugs and drug paraphernalia, including needles. The parents were found to be abusing illegal and prescription drugs. The children did not appear otherwise abused or malnourished, according to police, and evidence suggested they had not been in the room no more than a day.
Moore’s three daughters are currently in custody of a relative, and neither Moore nor Robey are allowed access to them.
Moore is also the mother of two older boys from another relationship. She lost custody of those boys in 2005, when they were found wandering near the landfill on Route 234.
Defense attorney David Daugherty admitted that his client was addicted to prescription drugs, but said, “She wants nothing more but to become a good mother.”
Moore told the court she was clean, saying, “I feel so much better, and I have so much to look forward to."
But Prosecutor Kristina Robinson countered that Moore had been kicked out of court-ordered drug rehab classes, which delayed her sentencing.
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