Kansas City woman gets 2 decades in prison for ‘severely beating’ 2 children in 2017
A Kansas City woman was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for abusing two children in her care in 2017, court records show.
Nancy Russell, 40, she was convicted in March of four class B felonies of first-degree domestic assault and four counts of armed criminal action for “severely beating” two children at a Kansas City home in Oct. 2017, according to a news release Sunday from the Jackson County Prosecutors Office.
Detectives with the Kansas City Police Department were called to investigate allegations of abuse after two siblings were taken from Russell’s care to Arkansas, according to court documents. The genders and ages of the victims were redacted in court records.
Police said a family member of one of the victims reported that one child was walking with a limp and had gashes on their head.
Detectives through forensic interviews learned Russell hit the child with a cord and a metal pipe. The child said it was because they “didn’t do their laundry properly,” according to charging documents.
That victim was hospitalized with a broken foot, several “acute lacerations” to their head, ear and arm, court records show.
During interviews with investigators, the children described being beaten by Russell on a routine basis. The incident that was apparently the genesis for the criminal investigation occurred as Russell was “upset” because the child did not perform chores “properly,” one told investigators.
After that beating, Russell allegedly forced one child to clean up their own blood with a towel, authorities said. On other occasions, Russel was accused of using an extension cord, belts, switches and or thick piece of wood to beat the children.
One of the victims was also treated for possible rhabdomyolysis, “a breakdown of the muscle tissue due to the severe beating,” according to charging documents.
“The degree of violence which produced these injuries would have placed (the victim’s) life at risk,” court records read.
The Star’s Bill Lukitsch contributed.
