A Cocoa woman has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for enabling child abuse that killed one of her twin three-month-old daughters and hospitalized the other.

HANNAH R. JONES, 21, was arrested in October 2023 along with the twins’ father, Quentin  C. Smith, 25, after she found one baby unresponsive in their apartment on North Fiske Boulevard and called 911. Cocoa police officers tried but failed to revive the badly bruised infant with CPR. The second infant was later examined at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando where doctors discovered a skull fracture, brain bleed, two broken legs and bite marks.

“These babies came home from the hospital and spent their entire 2-1/2 months there in an abusive environment,” Assistant State Attorney Rebecca Price said at Jones’ sentencing hearing May 15.  “It’s only because one baby was found dead that morning that her sister lived.”

Jones told investigators she had witnessed Smith squeeze, hit and throw objects at the babies out of frustration and pick them up by their limbs. Smith admitted to shaking, yanking, and biting the twins on multiple occasions. The parents never took the children to doctors for any reason – among the “choices” Jones made that contributed to her child’s death, Price said.

Jones pleaded no contest in February and was convicted of two counts of neglect of a child with great bodily harm. Smith awaits trial in the Brevard County Jail, charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse by willful torture.

The State Attorney’s Office made no plea offer in this case. Price asked for the maximum prison sentence of 30 years on the two charges.

At Jones’ sentencing in Viera, Circuit Judge Charles Crawford told her she “should never be in charge of any children ever again.”  Keeping Jones in prison until she is about 40 will make it unlikely for her to become a mother again, he said.

The surviving twin has recovered and now lives safely with her great grandmother.