Katie 
Hampton, Virginia: On Monday, July 25, 2022, 37-year-old Julia L. Tomlin was sentenced by Judge Michael Gaten to 55 years in prison for the 2019 murder of her two-year-old son Noah Tomlin.
It was the maximum possible sentence allowable with 40 years awarded for the second-degree murder charge, 10 years for the charge of child neglect, and five years for concealing a dead body. The sentences are to be served consecutively.
On December 14, 2021, Tomlin plead guilty to second-degree murder, child neglect, and concealing a dead body.
In June 2019, Noah Tomlin was reported missing. The initial report was that he had gone missing overnight after being placed into bed around 1:00 am. For ten days multiple agencies worked together to find the young boy before ultimately, his body was found stuffed into an empty diaper box at a steam plant.
A medical examiner's report determined that his cause of death was blunt force trauma and battered child syndrome.
In announcing the findings Hampton Commonwealth's Attorney Anton Bell stated explicitly, "this child was tortured."
Bell went on to say, "The type of injury this child suffered was as if a child had fallen several stories. His abuse was of such a nature that his bones stopped growing. There was evidence of that."
According to WTVR, Tomlin's daughter, now 19, testified during the sentencing hearing saying that all of the 10 children had endured physical and mental abuse but that Noah had endured the worst and "in the two short years he lived, he had witnessed pure hate and cruelty from the woman who was supposed to love and protect him."
"My mother, Julia Tomlin, has never been fit to be a parent," she was quoted by Daily Press as saying during her testimony. "She has only cared for herself and has never prioritized the needs of any of her children, even when she and claimed to be doing so. All of her children have been removed from her care and should have never been returned to her care."
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