A Weatherford mother who left her two young children in a hot car last year to teach them a 'lesson' was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday, officials said.
Cynthia Marie Randolph, 25, was found guilty of two counts of injury to a child in the deaths of her son, Cavanaugh Ramirez, who was 16 months old, and daughter, Juliet Ramirez, 2.
The jury sentenced her to 20 years on each count, and the sentences will run concurrently, said Parker County assistant district attorney Jeff Swain.
The incident happened May 26 when officials were called to the 200 block of Rambling Loop, west of Lake Weatherford, shortly after 4 p.m.
Randolph had found her two children playing inside the car, police said.
One of the kids refused to get out of the car, so she shut the door to teach her daughter "a lesson," according to an arrest warrant affidavit, thinking they could get themselves out of the car.
Temperatures reached approximately 96 degrees that day.
An investigation revealed Randolph then went inside her home, smoked marijuana and fell asleep for several hours.
The children were pronounced dead shortly after 4:30 p.m. Their deaths were ruled homicides.
In multiple interviews, officials said, Randolph created several variations of the events. She later told investigators that she later broke the car window to make it look like an accident.