Serenity's mother, Ieshia Richardson, had been childhood best friends with Butts and had brought her daughter to stay at her godmother's home on Congaree River Drive in Summerville for about two weeks, beginning in late October 2009.
[...]
Circuit Judge Deadra Jefferson said the photos of Serenity's injuries showed a child "systematically beaten to death."
"I've never had anything affect me as profoundly as the pictures I've viewed of this child," Jefferson said. She noted that the women could have stopped, could have saved Serenity.
Jefferson also suggested that perhaps the women frightened the potty-trained child into urinating uncontrollably. The prosecutor noted that one pelvic injury likely caused Serenity to lose bladder control.
Cunningham's attorney, Cassandra Woosley, described her client as less responsible for the girl's death than Butts.
She said Cunningham had been beaten as a child and grew up in a culture of abuse. Cunningham became pregnant with her own daughter, whom she and Butts cared for, in ninth grade.
Cunningham read a letter saying she wants to be a good mother again one day.
"There is not a day that goes by that I don't wish I could go back and change everything," she said.
Butts' attorney, Melissa Gay, portrayed Cunningham as the "controlling and aggressive" partner in an abusive relationship, while describing Butts as a "meek" woman. Gay said she repeatedly asked Butts for information to implicate Cunningham, but that her client refused to flip on her partner.
Butts said in court that she didn't know that Serenity was dying, and described her close relationship with Serenity's mother. Ieshia Richardson had been the only person Butts confided in after she was raped at age 15, and Butts had been in the hospital with Richardson when Richardson gave birth to Serenity, her only child.
"I was responsible for some things, but I would never kill her," Butts said. Then, practically screaming through her sobs, she turned to Richardson and said, "I will always love you no matter what. ... I just want to tell you I'm so, so sorry."
Addressing the judge, Richardson said she has only clothes, toys and a lock of hair to remind her of her daughter.
"All I wanted to do was be good to her and do right to her," Richardson said. "Nobody deserves what she received."
She asked that her best friend and her best friend's lover receive the maximum sentence.
"I am past being sad about this," Richardson said. "I am angry. I am very, very angry."
She wore a purple T-shirt with the Serenity prayer printed on it: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference."
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