DuPont man gets 70 years for killing infant daughter
A former soldier at Joint Base Lewis-McChord who was convicted of killing his infant daughter was sentenced Friday to 70 years in prison.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge James Orlando handed down the sentence.
A jury last month convicted Dwayne Cowart, 32, of second-degree murder in the death of his daughter, Bella.
Jurors agreed with prosecutors that the crime was aggravated by two factors, including that Bella was particularly vulnerable. The findings allowed Orlando to impose a sentence above the standard range, deputy prosecutor Scott Peters said.
The girl died April 16, 2014, the day before she would have turned 2 months old, court records state. She’d been hospitalized since March 24, 2014, for treatment of multiple injuries, including a brain hemorrhage, a broken femur and rib fractures, the records show.
Prosecutors alleged Cowart inflicted the injuries at the family home in DuPont after becoming frustrated with Bella when she was fussy.
Cowart gave multiple accounts of what happened to his daughter, but he insisted throughout that he’d never purposely hurt her.
Adam Lynn: 253-597-8644, @TNTAdam
This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 10:50 AM with the headline "DuPont man gets 70 years for killing infant daughter."