Woman sentenced for kidnapping

A Fresno woman, who pleaded no contest to kidnapping the three young children of her half-sister, who was killed last August, was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in prison.

Brittney Sue Humphrey, 22, appeared Wednesday in San Fernando Superior Court where she was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

“She was sentenced to 13 years in state prison,” Greg Risling, spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office told The Signal Wednesday.

In July, Humphrey entered an open plea to three counts of kidnapping. In an open plea, the defendant pleads to the court without negotiating a settlement with the District Attorney’s Office.

Humphrey and her 27-year-old boyfriend, Joshua Robertson, were alleged to have kidnapped the three young children of Kimberly Harvill in August 2016. The three children were ages 5, 3 and 2 when the crime occurred.

The couple was arrested in October on suspicion of murdering Harvill, and then of kidnapping Harvill’s three children.

The children were later found abandoned in New Mexico at a motel. Humphrey and Robertson were arrested later in Colorado.

Robertson and Alex Richard Valdez, a 29-year-old warehouse worker who lives in Firebaugh west of Fresno, have been charged with murdering Harvill, whose body was discovered in a remote area of Gorman on Aug. 14, 2016. They also face a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait, making them eligible for the death penalty.

A decision on whether to seek the death penalty will be made at a later date.

Robertson also was charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a felon and two counts of an unrelated arson and one count of possession of flammable material.

Robertson is scheduled to return Aug. 8 for a preliminary hearing. Valdez is scheduled to be arraigned on Oct. 30.

Harvill’s body was found lying in the brush by a motorist on Aug. 14 along Gorman Post Road, north of California State Route 138, in Lebec, near the Kern County line.