Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images;ORANGE COUNTY CORRECTIONS DEPARTMENT
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After a two-year-long trial, Billy Bob Thornton's estranged daughter Amanda Brumfield has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for aggravated manslaughter of a child, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The decision was the resolution of the 2008 death of 1-year-old Olivia Madison Garcia, Brumfield's goddaughter.
Originally Brumfield had been tried for first-degree murder but was found not guilty. Thornton's daughter has maintained that the infant hit her head when she accidentally fell out of her playpen, and that's what caused the death. The prosecution argued that it was impossible for the injuries Garcia sustained to have been the result of that kind of fall. The final consensus was that Brumfield's description of events was inconsistent with the child's injuries.
Olivia's mother, Heather Murphy, admitted to the Sentinel that the sentence was "more than I expected," but she feels "justice has been served."
Brumfield is the daughter of Thornton's first wife, Melissa Lee Gatlin, whom he wed in 1978. She filed for divorce two years later over incompatibility and adultery, and Thornton and Brumfield have remained estranged ever since.
"He's pretty much made me feel like I've been shut out," Brumfield told Inside Edition in 2001. "I mean, I have nothing against him. I love him. He's my father. I just want him to be around. I don't want to cry, but it's not fair to watch him on TV every day, and I can't even get a call."
After Brumfield was arrested on June 1, 2009, Thornton made a point to clarify that he and his first child had been estranged for "quite some time," and he separated himself as much from the situation as he could. "Anytime a baby's life is lost is an unimaginable tragedy, and my heart goes out to the baby's family and loved ones," the actor said in a statement.
