Brenda Deutsch, 70, pleaded guilty to endangering a teenage girl in her care as a foster mother in Missouri. The court sentenced her to seven years in prison. She will serve none of them.
Judge Thomas Frawley suspended the execution of the sentence and released her under three years of probation, although from the bench he called her conduct “reprehensible” and revoked the foster home license that the state had allowed her to keep for years. Brina Johnson, Deutsch’s biological daughter, said that her mother had at least seven exotic monkeys and was no kinder to them than to the children she fostered. The teenager, now 17, was taken to Texas in November 2024, and Deutsch was arrested months later following an investigation into physical and mental abuse.
Deutsch became a foster mother to more than 200 children over the years. The judge himself ended up apologizing to the victims for the failures of a system that allowed her to care for minors for so long.
