Cunningham, 37, pleaded guilty in December to killing his son. Your sentence is scheduled to begin immediately and will be served in its entirety with no reductions other than the time served.
Upon release, he will serve an additional three years on supervised release and will be asked to register as a violent criminal against youth, a judge said Friday.
“It was a horrible death preceded by a horrible life,” McHenry County Judge Robert Wilbrandt said during the sentencing hearing on Friday.
Before announcing the sentence, Wilbrandt said, “It was not discovered that Ms. Cunningham intended to kill her son and it was not discovered that she committed the kind of rampant cruelty that could have resulted in a natural life prison sentence. “
AJ ‘lived his life in the shadow of his darkness’
AJ’s body was found wrapped in plastic in the grave on April 24, 2019, about 10 miles from the family’s home in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
Cunningham and AJ’s father, Andrew Freund Sr., reported that AJ went missing on April 18, saying he was in his bed the night before, but left the next morning. The multi-day search gained interest across the country.
Freund Sr., 61, eventually provided information that led to AJ’s grave, authorities said. The boy probably died days earlier, on April 15, authorities said. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the brain, according to the coroner’s report.
The night he died, AJ was forced to take a cold shower after getting his clothes dirty, and had gone to bed wet and naked before his parents found him dead, authorities said.
During a sentencing hearing Thursday, McHenry County District Attorney Patrick Kenneally requested the maximum sentence of 60 years after painting a grim picture of the short and brutal life that AJ’s life was.
AJ “lived her life in the shadow of her darkness, a dystopian world when your mother uses you as a scapegoat, hits you for minor infractions, locks you in your room so that your childhood exuberance does not get in the way of her benzo amphetamine and opioid use Kenneally said.
“If there was ever a case that demanded the most forceful and maximum response, not only based on the nature of the case, but her own expert witness says that she will be a danger to the rest of her life, it is this case,” Kenneally said.
‘Beyond any category of error’
Sobbing as she spoke to the judge for mercy, Cunningham said it was a “privilege” to have AJ as her son.
“There is nothing I would not do to bring him back,” he said.
The mother and her lawyer focused on the fact that she had been the victim of abuse, most of her life.
Cunningham’s lawyer told the judge to look at “his life in its entirety.”
The family had a long history of child welfare calls to the Department of Children and Family Services, according to a report the department released last year.
Cunningham and AJ tested positive for opiates and benzodiazepines when he was born. AJ was removed from her care and DCFS took custody of the baby.
AJ was returned to the couple eight months later, after both parents took parenting classes and entered a drug treatment program.
Authorities have described dog feces and urine throughout the house where AJ lived, with broken windows and a strong odor of feces where AJ and his younger brother slept.
The prosecutor on Thursday described an abusive and drug-using mother who only cared about herself. “What she did goes beyond any category of error,” Kenneally said.
“It’s bad,” said Kenneally. “And trying to understand evil by showing tolerance for this type of evil only breeds more evil.”
Freund Sr. has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. His next court date is scheduled for July 30.
CNN’s Nicole Chavez, Madeline Holcombe, Brad Parks, Eric Levenson and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.
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