BATON ROUGE — Lanaya Cardwell was sentenced Thursday to 14 years in prison in connection with the death of her 2-year-old daughter after prosecutors argued to the judge that the mother had no remorse for what she had done. 

Investigators for the district attorney's office went through Cardwell's phone calls she made while behind bars and played a clip during her sentencing hearing where she told someone, "I need to come home. I'm ready to touch down and cause hell."

District Attorney Hillar Moore said his investigators wanted to show Judge Fred Crifasi and the public the truth about Cardwell. 

"She thought nobody was looking at her and she said she's ready to hit the streets and get down to hell here and wanted a bottle of wine waiting for her like it was a reward and she was bored of being in jail," Moore said. "Well, there's another person who can't be bored, because they're not alive, and families that are not bored because they're suffering."

Cardwell was found guilty of attempted second-degree cruelty to juveniles for punching her toddler in the stomach after the 2-year-old tore her contact lens. It happened as Cardwell was getting ready for work on Sept. 24, 2021, the day Neveah Allen was reported missing. 

"She wishes she never went to work that day," Cardwell's attorney, Jarvis Claiborne, said during her hearing. 

Allen was left with Cardwell's live-in boyfriend Phillip Gardner, who has been found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. 

"I remember this one vividly. On the weekend when the baby was missing and we were desperately trying to find the child - hopefully alive," Moore said. "Unfortunately, found her dead in Mississippi in a suitcase."

Gardner's mother, Kim Holmes, said her family struggles to move on from what happened that day. 

"There's no normal life for us because we have to live thinking about Neveah and what could have been that is now nothing but memories," Holmes said. 

Holmes said the toddler's father, Marcus Allen, was a good dad. 

"He wasn't given the opportunity to be a father to his daughter but he did his best," she said.

She spoke candidly when she apologized on behalf of her son to both the family and the community.

"I did everything to be a good mother to my son and my son did everything that he could do to do something wrong that we have to pay for now for the rest of our lives. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to Baton Rouge that everybody had to be subject to this pain," she said.

Moore says Cardwell did not show the same remorse about what happened to Neveah. 

"I do not believe she showed any sorrow whatsoever. She has not admitted guilt, which is very painful for this family."

As a stipulation of Cardwell's sentencing, she has to take parenting classes and enroll in therapy for trauma and grief while she is in prison.

"This tragedy here will last for generations and generations in this family. It's one that just doesn't go away, and it comes back every holiday, graduation," he said.