The Tennessee mother found guilty of reckless homicide in connection with the shooting death of her young daughter has been sentenced to 22 years in prison.
A Knox County judge sentenced Robin Howington for the death of 5-year-old Destiny Oliver in 2019.
"She deserves to die in prison," Destiny's father wrote in a victim impact statement the prosecutor read before the judge handed the sentence down.
The judge cited several factors for the long sentence including her decision to hide the gun.
"You are not a victim in this case," Judge G. Scott Green told Howington. "I don't know how you could have made this much worse."
Howington gave police several different stories about what happened the night of the killing.
She first told them an unknown man came into the house and shot the girl.
Howington later accused her boyfriend of disposing of the gun but a neighbor had recorded video of her hiding the gun in a bush near her home.
She later blamed her 2-year-old son for the shooting and said she hid the gun afterward.
"You tried to hide the gun while her body was still warm," the judge told Howington. "You made up story after story after story."
Howington will have to serve about 17 years before she can be paroled.
