Grandmother gets life sentence for 8-year-old's killing

Helen Ford, convicted of murder in the 2013 death of her 8-year-old granddaughter Gizzell Ford, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday.

Judge Evelyn Clay delivered her sentence at the end of a hearing that stretched nearly five hours, with a string of Ford's relatives taking the stand to describe the 55-year-old as a mother figure unable to say "no" to family members in need.

Clay, scowling alternately at Ford and the defendant's dozen or so family members in the gallery, recited a detailed outline of the evidence against Ford before passing sentence.

Gizzell Ford had been tortured brutally by her grandmother and ailing father, forced to do squats and subject to cruel taunts. The second grader suffered months of privation and abuse in what the judge described as a "slow, painful, agonizing death."

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