Cape Town – A Montagu mother has been sentenced to 30 years behind bars after she admitted in a plea and sentencing agreement that she throttled her baby girl to death.
Karen Isaacs pleaded guilty in the Western Cape High Court yesterday to murdering her 3-year-old daughter Kay-Leigh on March 16.
Child rights activist Lucinda Evans, director of NPO Philisa Abafazi Bethu, said 30 years were not enough.
“This woman should have been handed life, especially because she had previously tried to harm her child. She is also not a first-time offender.”
In her plea, Isaacs said she was involved in a love triangle.
On March 16, she had started drinking shortly after waking up, and thought that the man who displayed an interest in her might kill her and her disabled common-law husband.
That meant, according to Isaacs, that “there would be no one to look after Kay-Leigh”.
Isaacs then decided that it would be best to kill her toddler and she took her to a secluded part of a field at Bloufontein Farm where she choked the child.
She left her daughter’s body on the field and went to drink further with a friend.
Kay-Leigh was reported missing on March 20 and when authorities questioned Isaacs on the whereabouts of her daughter, she said the child was with family.
Police accompanied the accused to her family and while driving there, Isaacs admitted that she killed Kay-Leigh and showed police the spot where her decomposed body was.
Isaacs is a mother of three. A temporary safe care application had previously been granted which saw Kay-Leigh and her older brother placed in the care of a guardian.
When the temporary safe care order lapsed, Kay-Leigh was returned to Isaacs.
Isaacs has a previous conviction for culpable homicide. At the age of 15, she received a sentence of 42 months' imprisonment which was wholly suspended for a period of five years.