Woman sentenced to 40 years in prison for beating her daughter to death

HOUSTON, TX- 24-year-old mother, Andrea Webb, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for beating her daughter to death in 2019.

Reportedly, Webb called the police on March 9, 2019, said that her daughter, Samantha Bell, fell from an apartment balcony and died.

Going further with the investigation, the officers noticed that the girl was bruised all over her body. Andrea then admitted that she lied that her daughter fell from the balcony because she was scared of being charged with murder.

Andrea Webb admitted that she beat her daughter with belts and forced her to sit against the wall without a chair support for hours, and if she couldn’t do it, she would beat her up.

Webb and her boyfriend, Devon Gibson, were arrested., and Gibson’s case is still pending.

In September, Webb pleaded guilty to the first-degree felony of injury to a child, which carries the same punishment range as a murder charge, 5 years to life in prison, and asked her punishment to be determined by a judge.

A pre-sentence investigation is conducted by the judge, which will involve letters and testimony from Webb’s friends and family, and sentenced her Wednesday.

“Children are the most vulnerable and most innocent victims that we see in the criminal justice system, and a parent’s duty is to protect them, not violently beat them,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said.

Assistant District Attorney Gilbert Sawtelle, who prosecuted the case and is a chief in the DA’s Child Fatality Section, said the sentence was justice for the young victim.

“This physical abuse went on for a long period of time and didn’t just happen on one day,” Sawtelle said.

He said that the girl died from a constellation of old and new blunt-force injuries, including patterned and looped scars, contusions and lacerations that resulted in pulmonary fat embolism, acute kidney injury and evidence of systematic stress response.