TOLEDO, Ohio — The mother of two infants whose remains were left in separate abandoned cars was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Jenna Cisneros had pleaded no contest last month to charges of involuntary manslaughter, endangering children, tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice. Her husband is also charged in the investigation, and his trial is scheduled to start next week.
Jenna Cisneros, 34, was found competent to stand trial, but her attorney has said she has suffered from mental illness from an early age and did not have a normal relationship with her husband.
When she handed down the sentence Wednesday, Lucas County Common Pleas Court Judge Linda Jennings noted Cisneros has provided logic-defying and conflicting accounts of how she gave birth and abandoned her children over a span of about 2½ years,
Cisneros and her husband, Jacob Cisneros, were arrested in February on charges accusing them of leaving the body of their infant son in a car in 2017. The boy was thought to be no more than 2 months old, according to authorities.
Investigators said that soon after the couple was taken into custody, police found the remains of a second infant, a girl, inside another abandoned car at an apartment complex where the couple once lived.
Investigators have been unable to come up with a motive, prosecutors have said.
Both infants were found wrapped in household linens on the floors of the vehicles under the dashboards, according to an affidavit. Officers also found several articles of clothing, a woman’s wallet and letters to both Jacob and Jenna Cisneros inside one of the cars, court records showed.
