Man who starved kids in Dallas hotel gets 99 years
Posted Tuesday, Jul. 27, 2010
By Jeff Carlton
The Associated Press
DALLAS -- A 38-year-old man convicted of starving three children whom he kept locked in a hotel bathroom for nearly a year was sentenced Tuesday to 99 years in prison after jurors heard testimony that one child was suicidal and another wet his hospital bed rather than go into the bathroom.
The youngest child, a 6-year-old boy whose head barely showed over the witness stand rail, told jurors that he liked the hospital where he was taken after being rescued in July 2009.
"I got to eat," he said.
Earlier Tuesday, jurors convicted Alfred Santiago of injury to a child and continuous sexual abuse.
Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence. Santiago's attorney asked for 25 years, the minimum allowed under the sex abuse conviction.
