Ohio man gets 20 to life for suffocating three-year-old stepsister

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio man was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for suffocating his 3-year-old stepsister while he babysat her and her 8-year-old sibling, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Brian K. Scales, 21, was sentenced on Wednesday in a Montgomery County court in Dayton, Ohio, after he was found competent to stand trial and changed his insanity plea to guilty for killing Tristan Carlton.

Carlton's body was found "in her bed, cold and stiff," by her mother, Inas Scales, the afternoon of Feb. 14, Montgomery County prosecutor spokesman Greg Flannagan said in a statement on Thursday.

Scales, from the Dayton suburb of Trotwood, was charged with aggravated murder, endangering children and two counts of murder after Carlton's mother called 911 and an investigation into the child’s death determined she had been suffocated.

Inas Scales told her son she still loved him at his hearing but when he responded by saying his stepsister's death was "a mistake that happened," she replied, "You don't mistakenly murder somebody," according to the Dayton Daily News.

(This story has been refiled to add dropped letter in headline)

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Editing by Ben Klayman and Bill Trott)