Delaware mom sentenced for killing 4-year-old daughter

A Delaware judge on Friday sentenced a prostitute who beat her 4-year-old daughter to death in a New Castle-area motel to 20 years in prison.

Tanasia C. Milligan, 28, pleaded guilty last October to second-degree murder for the killing of her daughter, Autumn, in August 2014.

A News Journal story in 2014 detailed how the state Division of Family Services investigated four neglect complaints about Autumn's mother, including one brought by her sister that was active at the time of the girl's death. But child protection workers let Milligan keep Autumn and her brother, Ethan, even though they were living with a man alleged to be a pimp at a U.S. 13. hotel, according to court records.

The state has since made and proposed several changes in how child abuse and neglect investigations are handled.

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Milligan beat Autumn so badly that the child's bowel was perforated and fecal matter filled her intestinal canal, a State Police detective testified at a court hearing soon after her October 2014 arrest.

Milligan admitted hitting the child a couple of days before Autumn died, saying she had become angry and spanked her daughter on the leg, but the girl tried to wriggle away and she "hit her on the stomach," the detective said.

Superior Court Judge John A. Parkins Jr. sentenced Milligan on Friday afternoon to 25 years in prison, suspended after 20 years.

This time behind bars surpassed both what the state and defense had recommended to the judge. The state recommended 15 years, and Milligan's attorney, Natalie Woloshin, recommended 10 years.

Second-degree murder is punishable by a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 25 years.

"This was a good result for us in a very difficult, very tragic case," said Delaware Department of Justice spokesman Carl Kanefsky.

Woloshin declined to comment on the judge's sentence.

Milligan's 35-year-old boyfriend, Willie J. Reeder, pleaded guilty last year to felony child endangering for not calling 911 to save Autumn when the girl was near death. He was sentenced to 3 1/2 years.

Reeder, who sometimes took care of Autumn and her brother, admitted to watching as the girl vomited bile and twisted in pain from abuse before being pronounced dead about 2:30 a.m.

The state investigation into Autumn's death and the prior probes of Milligan found numerous flaws in how the cases were handled and in the child protection system. Despite the mother's history of ignoring case workers' orders to get medical and other help for the children, no one in authority decided she was an unfit mother whose children needed to be taken from her.

Contact Jessica Masulli Reyes at (302) 324-2777, jmreyes@delawareonline.com or Twitter @JessicaMasulli.