Mother who let boyfriend torture son to death in dog crate gets four years in jail

Tracy Pena (left) has been jailed for just four years for letting boyfriend Thomas Ferguson torture her son Jeremiah (right) to death. Photo / Supplied

Warning: Distressing content

A mother who allowed her boyfriend to torture her 13-year-old son to death in a dog crate will spend only four years in jail.

Tracy Pena, 38, has been sentenced to 21 years in prison over the 2017 torture death of her son Jeremiah in Nambe, New Mexico.

However, the judge ordered nine years of that sentenced to be suspended and added that two could be spent on parole and another five on probation.

Pena has already spent 985 days in prison awaiting trial, meaning she will be out of jail in 2024 if she maintains good behaviour.

The Albuquerque Journal reports that the US woman allowed her boyfriend Thomas Ferguson. to force Jeremiah to live in a dog crate, wearing just a nappy, while subjecting the teenage boy to torture.

Ferguson ended up killing Jeremiah by repeatedly tossing the wooden crate the boy lived in.

He ended up killing himself in jail in April 2018, while awaiting trial.

The boy's 13-year-old sister described the final attack has leaving her brother's head "just kind of hanging".

Ferguson buried Jeremiah's body in a plastic crate near his home.

The sister, who has not been identified, told Las Cruces Sun News: "He was really skinny, and all his cuts were infected. He had a black eye, and his tooth was knocked out."

Pena was in jail for a parole violation when her son was killed but was reportedly aware of the abuse her boyfriend had been inflicted on her son for quite some time.

Jeremiah's aunt Celine Viera spoke up against the mother's light sentence: "How could this own biological mother just sit there and let this torture continue on and on?"

"This is a selfish person whose only concern was getting that next drug fix and to keep her newest boyfriend happy…How can this be justice," she added.