When Ron Wallace Jr. was done beating his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter police said that the child's head "felt like Jell-O." That little girl is now dead. And Wallace will spend the next two decades in a prison cell reflecting on why she's dead.
Wallace, a 30-year-old man from Federal Way, was convicted of second-degree murder last month--a reduced charge that he pleaded guilty to in exchange for a lighter sentence.

He was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in prison.

The crime happened on Nov. 21, 2010 when Wallace was watching 2-year-old Purpose Goldsmith, his girlfriend's daughter, while her mom was at work.

At one point the little girl soiled her diaper--as two-year-olds are wont to do--and Wallace became so enraged that he beat her with a belt six or seven times, beat her head with his open hand several more times, then shook her until she went limp.

Panicking, Wallace then called an ambulance to try and save the little girl and he told police that he had no idea how the child was injured. This denial didn't last long, however, as the man eventually admitted to beating the girl.

Medics had rushed the girl to the hospital and doctors had tried to save her, but it was to no avail. The girl died in a matter of hours.

Wallace is no stranger to the criminal justice system and no stranger to child abuse. Among his many previous convictions is one for breaking his own daughter's ribs by crushing her chest because she wouldn't stop crying.

Originally facing a charge of first-degree murder, Wallace would have been looking at a life sentence for the crime if he hadn't taken a plea deal.