Woman serving life sentence for child abuse denied parole in Tulare County

by Ishshah Padilla

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. — The Tulare County District Attorney’s Office has secured a parole denial for a woman who is serving a 25 year-to-life sentence for a child abuse case where one of her adopted children was found dead inside a vehicle back in 2000 in Porterville.

Angela Thompson, 63, has been denied parole for the next three years and will remain at the California Institution of Women in Corona.

At the time of the crime, Thompson was caring for 12 adopted children. On Sept. 7, while at Sierra View Hospital, one of her children a 5-year-old girl was found not breathing inside their family vehicle. Hospital staff was not able to revive her but found obvious signs of child abuse.

The child was found with a 105-degree temperature, scars from being restrained, burn scars, multiple bone fractures, and severe sexual abuse signs.

Through the investigation, two other children came forward with information about the constant abuse that came from their adopted mother.

The 5-year-old girl, officials learned was sat on by a 17-year-old sibling who was ordered to do so by Thompson for a 4–5-hour drive from Travis Air Force Base to Porterville. She was said to of cried the entire ride and was denied water. Her official cause of death was determined to be positional asphyxiation.

Further looking into Thompson’s care, detectives learned the children faced different types of abusive disciplinary actions that can be seen below:

• “Crying” meant putting a plastic bag over the child’s face
• “Gurgled” meant force-feeding in which Thompson would put on rubber gloves and force food down the children’s throats. She would do this when the children were not eating fast enough
• “Plunging” meant putting the children in the bathtub with their faces under a running faucet
• “Poking” involved being poked on the hands, feet, underarms, mouth, gums, ear, or lips with a needle or safety pin
• Much of the abuse consisted of spankings with belts or spoons or hitting the kneecaps with a rod

Thompson was convicted back in Oct. 2001, for second-degree murder, assault on a child likely to cause great bodily injury or death, and child abuse.

This child’s murder was horrific and impacted everyone in this office in a profound way,” says District Attorney Tim Ward. “Once again, I commend the efforts of all staff for taking a stance for victims and being a voice for those who lost theirs. This office will continue oppose these releases.