Pamela Christensen, 49, Montgomery

Pamela Christensen, a 49-year-old Montgomery mother accused of trying to murder her three daughters in 2014, was sentenced to four years in prison on Wednesday, following a brief bench trial at the Kendall County Courthouse.

Judge Timothy McCann found Christensen guilty, but mentally ill, of two counts of Aggravated Battery and one count of Aggravated Unlawful restraint. All remaining charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement reached between prosecutors and Christensen.

With day-to-day credit, and more than 700 days already served, Christensen is expected to be released from jail in a few weeks.

The demure looking defendant, dressed in orange and cuffed at the wrists, sobbed quietly as she was handed her sentence. Her husband, Vaughn Christensen, looked on from the galley.

“I’ve spent a lot of time on this case, reviewing documents, exhibits and reports,” McCann said. “I concur this is a fair and just sentence.”

Only one witness, a former Montgomery police officer, took the stand Wednesday to introduce a stipulated synopsis of the events that took place inside Christensen’s Patron Lane home on Sept. 25, 2014.

According to court records, police responded to the home around 10:20 a.m. after receiving two hang-up 911 calls from inside the residence.

Police said that when they arrived Christensen answered the door wearing a white shirt covered in blood. She got down on her knees and confessed to officers that she had tried to kill her children.

The girls, then ages 12, 16 and 19, were found upstairs, and two had been stabbed in the chest. According to Kendall County Court records, Christensen had also stabbed herself in the chest and abdomen.

Everyone was taken to the hospital where they were treated for minor injuries.

Christensen was charged with three counts each of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery and aggravated unlawful restraint.

In court records filed to secure a search warrant for the family’s home, police said Christensen told officers that she was sending the girls home to “meet Jesus Christ.”

She told police she had hoped to poison her children so she could stab them. Police said the children refused to ingest the poison.

The case startled residents and neighbors, and drew the attention of the national media.

Following years of psychiatric testing, Christensen was found fit to stand trial, thus striking her insanity defense, however, it was agreed that Christensen was mentally ill at the time of the crime. The court determined that the mother was impaired, but not to the extent that she wasn’t aware of the harm she was doing.

As part of her plea agreement Christensen will have to continue psychiatric treatment throughout her one year of mandatory supervised release, or parole.

Christensen will also have to register as a violent offender under the Violent Offender Against Youth Act.

The mother was also given credit for time served after pleading guilty to misdemeanor Resisting a Police Officer for slipping out of her handcuffs and attempting to escape the courtroom during a hearing in January of this year.

— Montgomery woman gets four-year prison term for trying to murder daughters —