Jacquea Piggee, 24

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Parents of a 10-month-old boy who couldn't explain to police how their son's skull was cracked were sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday after the child died from traumatic brain injuries.

Jacquea Piggee, 24, and Diontay Phillips Sr., 30, were sentenced on involuntary manslaughter charges stemming from the Oct. 13, 2014 death of their son, Diontay Phillips Jr. They pleaded guilty earlier this month.

The couple was already serving prison time for child endangering when a grand jury handed up the manslaughter indictments after the boy died.

Phillips pleaded guilty to the first charge in 2013 and was sentenced the following January to five years in prison. Piggee took her child-endangering case to trial in April 2014. She was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Those original sentences were mere merged with Monday's sentences, and both parents will be given credit for time served under the previous sentence.

What happened before Piggee showed up at the hospital in September 2013 with baby Diontay remains a mystery.

Piggee fell to her knees in court as the sentence was read Monday morning. Her sobbing became so profuse that a sheriff's deputy moved her handcuffs so that she could wipe her face.

The baby's skull was so badly damaged when she brought it in that it protruded outward on his scalp. He suffered repeated seizures over the following weeks and months. He would never return home, dying more than a year after he was brought to the hospital at the age of 2.

Piggee's story morphed from "I don't know" to speculating that his 7-year-old brother dropped him to then claiming that her boyfriend's medicine made him irate, and could have prompted him to lash out against the boy.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Sherrie Royster told the judge that Piggee told a police officer at one point during an interview: "If I get my alibi straight, I'll be alright, right."

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's found that the boy would have had to fall from at least three stories. His head injuries were consistent with that of a high-speed crash.

Piggee was pregnant at the time Diontay Jr. was in the hospital. The child was put up for adoption when it was born.

McDonnell said she had considered giving Phillips, who has a criminal history including assaulting a police officer and felony drug trafficking, a harsher sentence. But the judge was dismayed at Piggee's serpentine story line.

"You're both equally responsible," McDonnell said. "You're both the parents."

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