Jack Richardson Jr. listens to proceedings during his sentencing hearing Friday. Photo by Gary Thompson.

Adacelli Snyder suffered from cerebral palsy and "was 100 percent dependent," a prosecutor said Friday, on the two adults in her life: her mother and the woman's boyfriend.

But the Las Vegas couple neglected the 2-year-old girl, who weighed 11 pounds when she died in the squalor of their mobile home on June 29, 2005.

"She was starved to death," Chief Deputy District Attorney Vicki Monroe said Friday. "She had no muscle mass. She had nothing."

District Judge David Wall followed Monroe's recommendation Friday and imposed the maximum sentence on Jack Richardson Jr.: life in prison with the possibility of parole after 10 years. Wall imposed the same sentence two months ago on Richardson's girlfriend, 29-year-old Charlene Snyder.

Deputy Public Defender Timothy O'Brien urged Wall to use his discretion and choose a lesser sentence of 10 to 25 years for Richardson, 27.

"This was a case of not knowing any better," the defense lawyer argued.

He said Richardson grew up in a "horrifically abusive home" and "was discarded as a very, very young child."

"This is a guy who was doing the best he could with what he had," O'Brien said.

Richardson chose to say nothing before Wall imposed the sentence.

"My hope is that Adacelli had no recognition of what was happening to her," the judge said.

O'Brien said the girl was severely brain-damaged and probably would have died a natural death by the age of 5. The lawyer said he doubted that evidence in the case would have shown neglect caused her death, "but indeed this child was neglected."

Richardson and Snyder each pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the case. Their lawyers said the couple wanted to avoid a trial that would have required testimony from their surviving children.

Snyder had four children, including one with Richardson. Monroe said Richardson told authorities that Adacelli "seemed normal" the day before she died, although she had insect bites and bruises on her emaciated body and feces caked on her buttocks.

"This was a horrific scene," Monroe said. "No child, terminal or not, deserved to be in the situation Adacelli was in."

The prosecutor said hair was wrapped so tightly around the girl's fingers that it cut into her skin -- an indication that she had been trying desperately to get at the bug bites on her lice-infested head.

Monroe chose not to show Wall a photo of Adacelli's body, as she had done at Snyder's sentencing. "This court knows what the condition of this child was at the time of her death," Monroe told the judge.