A mother in Texas has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after starving her young daughter and feeding her only one corn dog a day. Virginia Gonzales, 33, from Del Valle, pleaded guilty to felony child injury following an investigation that revealed the appalling abuse.
According to an arrest affidavit, the girl, whose name has not been released, was confined to a small closet measuring three by one foot. One of her siblings, aged 10, told police that she was only allowed to eat one corn dog and drink half a cup of water each day. She was found severely malnourished and soiled by her grandmother, who had been alerted by other grandchildren.
Detective Ryan Constable of the Austin Police Department Child Abuse Unit said the girl's cheeks had no fat and her body had used its stores to sustain itself. She weighed just 29 pounds (13 kg) when discovered. Gonzales claimed during a July 2025 hearing that she had never harmed her children and was 'ready to do whatever I need to keep my children.'
The court heard that Gonzales also had a daughter named Ava Marie Gonzales, who disappeared in 2017 at age nine and remains missing. Gonzales' surviving children have been placed in protective custody. The Travis County District Attorney's Office said it hoped the sentence would be 'the first step to the victim's road to recovery.'
