Renee Bowman told the court in Maryland: "I am very sorry for the abuse of those girls. It haunts me. It haunts me every day."
Handing her the maximum punishment possible, judge Michael Algeo said: "You sentenced these two young innocent children in the dawn of their lives to a death chamber, and for you that option is not available."
The bodies of Minnet, who would now be 12, and Jasmine, who would now be 11, were discovered in a locked freezer in the family's home in Maryland in September 2008.
Authorities searched the house after a third sister escaped and was found wandering the neighbourhood.
Prosecutors said Bowman was a sadist who derived pleasure from her children's misery as she kept them in a locked room with a bucket for a toilet.
All three girls had suffered severe injuries from repeated beatings and none ever went to school.
The surviving girl, now aged nine, dazzled court as she testified with a teddy bear in her arms.
She said Bowman beat them with a shoe and a baseball bat and repeatedly choked them until they lost consciousness.
The court was read an email Bowman sent to a friend in which she gleefully compared herself to the death row warden in the movie The Green Mile.
She said she shouted "Dead man walking," when any of the girls was about to be punished. "They hate it. Hahaha," Bowman wrote.
Investigators believe Bowman killed the girls months before they were found, while the family was living 60 miles away, and took the freezer with her when she moved home.
Bowman's lawyers say she suffered a difficult childhood, having been given up by her schizophrenic mother.
She was sentenced to the maximum penalty under Maryland law - two consecutive life sentences for the killings plus 75 years in prison for three counts of first-degree child abuse.
The judge told her: "You come across as such a nice, soft-spoken person. I can only conclude that the Renee Bowman I see before me is a different Renee Bowman from the one who lived in that house."
State attorney John McCarthy said the surviving daughter faces an uncertain future at the centre of a complex adoption case.
"God knows she's going to have lifelong difficulties dealing with the emotional, as well as the physical, scars from these crimes
Handing her the maximum punishment possible, judge Michael Algeo said: "You sentenced these two young innocent children in the dawn of their lives to a death chamber, and for you that option is not available."
The bodies of Minnet, who would now be 12, and Jasmine, who would now be 11, were discovered in a locked freezer in the family's home in Maryland in September 2008.
Authorities searched the house after a third sister escaped and was found wandering the neighbourhood.
Prosecutors said Bowman was a sadist who derived pleasure from her children's misery as she kept them in a locked room with a bucket for a toilet.
All three girls had suffered severe injuries from repeated beatings and none ever went to school.
The surviving girl, now aged nine, dazzled court as she testified with a teddy bear in her arms.
She said Bowman beat them with a shoe and a baseball bat and repeatedly choked them until they lost consciousness.
The court was read an email Bowman sent to a friend in which she gleefully compared herself to the death row warden in the movie The Green Mile.
She said she shouted "Dead man walking," when any of the girls was about to be punished. "They hate it. Hahaha," Bowman wrote.
Investigators believe Bowman killed the girls months before they were found, while the family was living 60 miles away, and took the freezer with her when she moved home.
Bowman's lawyers say she suffered a difficult childhood, having been given up by her schizophrenic mother.
She was sentenced to the maximum penalty under Maryland law - two consecutive life sentences for the killings plus 75 years in prison for three counts of first-degree child abuse.
The judge told her: "You come across as such a nice, soft-spoken person. I can only conclude that the Renee Bowman I see before me is a different Renee Bowman from the one who lived in that house."
State attorney John McCarthy said the surviving daughter faces an uncertain future at the centre of a complex adoption case.
"God knows she's going to have lifelong difficulties dealing with the emotional, as well as the physical, scars from these crimes
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