Mom sentenced to decade in prison

Child was starved, beaten, and locked away

By Sarah Elmquist Squires and Carl Cote 

The Ranger

Via Wyoming News Exchange

RIVERTON — At times the Cheyenne federal courtroom was silent save for sobs from the mother who starved and tortured her son and the clank of her handcuff chain. Kandace Sitting Eagle went through three boxes of tissues as her sentence – a decade and one month in prison – was handed down. 

But U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson said it was the first time she showed remorse for her crimes. 

Kandace’s husband Truman Sitting Eagle pleaded guilty to a charge of assault resulting in serious injury and received a 108 month prison sentence; Kandace went to trial and was convicted of aggravated child abuse, assault resulting in serious bodily injury, and assault with a dangerous weapon earlier this year. 

When Sitting Eagle is ultimately released, she may not see the son she tortured again, and visits with her other four children must be supervised, the judge ordered. 

The couple starved and beat their 13-year-old son, who suffered from a broken nose, multiple healing fractures in his back, bruising and lacerations all over his body, other serious injuries requiring surgery and significant weight loss. 

The boy was locked in his room and starved while the rest of the family enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner, locked in a crawlspace, and beaten and choked by his parents as punishment for stealing food. 

The victim’s saving grace was the diligence of Arapahoe School Resource Officer Matt Lee, who went to the family’s home multiple times after the victim was absent from school. 

The parents turned him away, but on December 12, 2023, Lee wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

Lee found the victim hiding in a crawlspace under the residence, his face bruised and his nose broken; his back had multiple healing fractures, and he’d lost around 10 pounds, among other serious injuries. 

He was taken to the hospital in Riverton and airlifted to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

FBI Special Agent Scott Jensen spoke with the victim before he departed for Salt Lake City. 

“I saw that almost his entire face was bruised and swollen. I observed bruising on his ear, arms, chest, and back,” Jensen swore in a statement detailing the investigation. “He had lacerations on his fingers, face, ear and scalp. [The victim] moved very slowly and said that he was in pain and that his legs hurt and were also bruised … I heard [the victim] tell the treating nurse that he was very hungry.” 

In the last several days, the boy had only eaten a sandwich and some chips on the way to the hospital, he told Jensen. 

The boy told investigators that he’d taken food to his bedroom, and the Sitting Eagles had become angry with him, first attempting to tie his bedroom door closed. 

Then when he was able to escape that night, they installed a lock on his door and screwed the window shut. 

He’d been locked in the room for two weeks and hoped they’d let him out to celebrate Thanksgiving. They didn’t. 

“When he was being kept in his room, [the victim] lost track of time and things became ‘foggy,’” the charges described. “[The victim] felt trapped like an animal. At some point he heard [Kandace Sitting Eagle] yell at him through the wall saying he had been in there for over a month and wouldn’t he like to be out having fun with the family. Sometimes they would give him food, usually leftovers.” 

The child told investigators that when his parents would find food or wrappers in his room, they would hit him; one day, Truman Sitting Eagle put a “choke hold” on the victim, “causing him to go to sleep,” and this happened several times. The boy told investigators this made him feel like spaghetti and “‘numb.’ It gave him a ‘tingling feeling in [his] head,’” court documents described. 

The victim also recounted Kandace Sitting Eagle hitting him with a stick, kneeing him between the legs, and Truman Sitting Eagle hitting him with a stick – causing his hands to swell up like balloons a few days prior. 

A doctor at the Salt Lake City hospital outlined the victim’s injuries, including a fractured right nasal bone and healing lumbar fractures in his spine, among other serious injuries. 

Sentencing 

At her sentencing last week, Kandace Sitting Eagle, who has numerous prior convictions for public intoxication, child neglect and disorderly conduct, said she had been living in fear and had grown up in a troubled home. 

“I’m sincerely so sorry for what I did,” she told the courtroom. “I apologize from the deepest of my heart … This has torn my whole family apart.” 

Johnson recounted that the victim had been abused even as an infant, suffering more than 20 fractures and life flighted to Denver as a toddler. 

“I don’t know what effort was taken to investigate their family situation, but it was dire straits,” Johnson said. 

The judge noted that Kandace was abused by her husband, and that “having more children kept her bound to him.” 

She started abusing alcohol at 14, and marijuana and methamphetamine at just 12 years old, he said. 

Johnson recommended her to drug and alcohol rehabilitation programming in prison; she has already completed 67 courses, including life skills and addiction-based classes while incarcerated, the defense explained. 

Along with the prison sentence, Sitting Eagle will face five years supervised release and more than $33,000 in medical cost restitution.

This story was published on September 28, 2024.