Minnesota couple get 40 years in starved daughter’s death

ELK RIVER, Minn. (AP) — The father and stepmother of an 8-year-old Minnesota girl whose emaciated body was found in the family’s apartment last year after she was beaten and starved to death have both been sentenced to 40 years in prison. Thirty-year-old Brett Hallow and 28-year-old Sarah Hallow pleaded guilty earlier to second-degree murder in the beating and starvation death of Autumn Hallow. KSTP-TV reports that the sentence included enhancements for “particular cruelty.” Another child who lived in the family’s Elk River home told police the couple would tie up the girl with a belt and put her in a sleeping bag, with only her head exposed.