RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) - The mother of two toddlers found emaciated on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 2016 has been sentenced to three years in federal prison after violating probation.
Darcel Featherman, 35, recently admitted in court to possessing methamphetamine when Rapid City police arrested her at a local hotel on March 20, the Rapid City Journal reported .
Featherman’s arrest came less than two weeks after she had been sentenced to three years of probation for abandoning her daughters to relatives she knew were unfit to take care of them. Featherman had said she gave her 2- and 3-year-old girls to her mother and sister because she was homeless without a means to raise them.
Law enforcement authorities found the toddlers emaciated, weighing one-third of the ideal weight for their age.
Featherman admitted in a written statement that she knew her mother and sister were alcoholics, that her mother had anger issues and that her sister also abused methamphetamine. Her sister was sentenced to 10 years in prison for child abuse and neglect. Her mother has been committed to a mental institution.
In addition to having her federal probation revoked, Featherman also faces drug charges in state court.
A glass pipe and snort tube that tested positive for meth were found on Featherman and a male companion at the time of her arrest, according to police. Featherman’s urine sample also tested positive for the drug, police said.
“Ms. Featherman admitted to law enforcement she took a few hits of the methamphetamine from the glass pipe, provided to her from the other individual,” her probation officer said in a written petition to a judge to revoke her probation.
Featherman is set to appear in court on the drug charges next month. Her daughters live with a foster family.
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Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com
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