Mom Pleads Guilty In Girl's Starvation Death

DENVER -- A woman charged with murder after her 3-year-old daughter died of starvation has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in a deal with prosecutors.

Shaunee Hall, 23, pleaded guilty Friday to child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury in the October 2007 death of Zianne Hall. Prosecutors dropped a first-degree murder charge.

She faces 20 years in prison at her Oct. 30 sentencing.

Police said Zianne weighed less than 22 pounds when she was hospitalized suffering from malnutrition and dehydration. She was rushed to Children's Hospital Oct. 13, 2007, and died Oct. 30, 2007.

The average 3-year-old weighs 33 pounds. Zianne weighed as much as a child half her age.

According to an affidavit, doctors had determined that "the victim's condition was not related to any medical condition ... it was 100 percent neglect."

Tina Houcks, 37, Hall's roommate and a woman who takes care of Zianne during the day, is charged with first-degree murder, knowingly causing the death of a child under 12, fatal child abuse and child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury.

Her trial is scheduled in December.

The additional murder charge indicates that investigators believe that neglect may have been intentional.

"Her mother is small. She is like 100 pounds, so I didn't think anything of it," Houcks told 7NEWS in a jailhouse interview last year. "I didn't starve her. As often as my kids ate, she ate."

Houcks said she knew something was not right with the girl but thought Zianne had a mental disability.