UPDATE: Lake Elsinore Mother Sentenced In Child Torture Case

5/13 UPDATE: A Lake Elsinore woman who placed her toddler’s legs in scalding water as punishment for wetting herself was sentenced today to 14 years in prison.

Diana Vicky Estrada, 26, escaped prison time once already, when she was convicted five years ago of abusing her older daughter.

Today she was facing 14 years for a torture conviction and another 18 years for inflicting corporal injury on a child, with serious felony and great bodily injury allegations.

The judge stayed the harsher sentence.

Estrada was convicted in March.

The defendant was arrested in August 2009 after she took her then-18-month-old daughter Princella Ayala into a Lake Elsinore medical clinic with burned feet and legs.

The child’s toes had turned black from a scalding and she was transferred to a burn unit for treatment.

At one point, doctors feared the child might lose a leg, according to the prosecution.

Estrada told authorities she was soaking curtains – then bathroom items – in very hot water and the toddler had fallen or stepped into the tub.

However, Estrada waited days to take the child to a hospital.

Estrada pleaded guilty in 2008 of child abuse for beating and starving her older daughter, Liliana, both of whose arms had been broken at different times.

The woman was sentenced to four years probation and 180 days in jail but she was arrested for the current case before she had completed her probationary period.

Liliana’s father, Fabian Cayetano Urrea, is serving a life sentence for killing the defendant’s husband, Jorge Estrada, in 2005. Urrea and the defendant had been romantically involved before she met and married Estrada.

While Estrada was away at war, Urrea and the defendant had an affair, according to Diana Estrada’s testimony at Urrea’s trial.

She testified that Urrea knew how to make her “comfortable” and convinced her to sleep with him.

She told Jorge Estrada that Urrea had raped her and the serviceman agreed to raise the child as his own, which did not sit well with Urrea, according to her testimony.

As Diana Estrada was getting ready to give birth, she told Urrea she was in Texas, while living in Murrieta with Jorge Estrada.

Urrea found out about Jorge when the latter grabbed a phone and told the former to stay away from his wife.

Urrea killed Estrada right after the victim told him that he would not have any say in his daughter’s rearing. --Mirna Alfonso

5/13 ORIGINAL POST: A Lake Elsinore mother of two who submerged her toddler's legs in scalding hot water as punishment, causing third-degree burns, was sentenced today to 14 years to life in prison.

Diana Vicky Estrada, 26, was convicted March 17 of torture, child abuse and a sentence-enhancing allegation of inflicting great bodily injury during a felony.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Mark Mandio handed down the maximum sentence for the torture count, which carried the stiffer penalty and superseded the other charges.

Estrada was arrested in August 2009 after she took her then-18-month-old daughter Princella into a Lake Elsinore medical clinic with burned feet and legs. The child's toes had turned black from a scalding, and she was transferred to the Arrowhead Regional Medical Center burn unit in Colton for treatment, including skin grafts.

Riverside County sheriff's investigators spoke with the victim's 4-year- old sister, Liliana, who told them the defendant had gotten angry when the younger child soiled her drawers, according to court testimony.

Estrada filled a bathtub with steaming hot water and immersed Princella's bottom half into it, prosecutors said. Liliana told investigators that her sister was crying and had "red blood owies.''

In 2007, Estrada was charged with child abuse for beating Liliana, whose arms had been broken at different times. The defendant pleaded guilty a year later and was sentenced to 180 days in jail and 48 months probation. She was also permitted to retain custody of the children. Princella had just been born.

Both girls are now in foster care.

Liliana's father, Fabian Cayetano Urrea, is serving a life sentence for killing the defendant's husband, Jorge Estrada, in 2005. Urrea and Diana Estrada had been romantically involved before she met and married Jorge Estrada. Urrea was angry because the National Guardsman planned to raise Liliana as his own. Princella's father has not been identified. --City News Service