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Woman To Serve Life For Child's Death
41-Year-Old Baby Sitter Convicted Last Month Of Murder, Child Abuse

POSTED: Tuesday, October 13, 2009
UPDATED: 12:32 pm EDT October 13, 2009

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A woman convicted last month of murder and aggravated child abuse in the 2006 death of a 2-year-old girl she was babysitting will serve life in prison without parole.

Syna Lim, 41, was sentenced Tuesday morning by Judge Mallory Cooper. Lim was found guilty of killing Amara Ou, who she was babysitting in her Mandarin home.

The medical examiner ruled the child died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head and had marks on her body consistent with being hit with the wire loop end of a flyswatter, which the police report called a "weapon."

Ou's father was in the courtroom, but asked the prosecutor to tell the judge about his family's grief and pain over losing their daughter.
"They will never get over this loss," Assistant State Attorney Sam Garrison said. "They indicated this was even more difficult that they could even possibly imagine because Amara's death came at the hands of someone they trusted and she was the most precious thing that they had."

Lim's defense attorney asked for leniency.

"Ms. Lim has two young children herself, and a courtroom full of people who care for her," attorney Refick Eler said. "Just a tragedy for everyone and I'd ask the court to consider that."

State sentencing guidelines call for a minimum sentence of life in prison without parole on all convictions for first-degree murder.

It's a sentence that gives Amara's family some sense of justice.

"All the defendant needed to say is that they didn't want to watch her ... and none of this would have happened," Garrison said.

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