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Thuy Thi Le was sentenced to 11 years to life in state prison for stabbing her two young daughters and herself at a Westminster home, an attack all three survived.

According to the Orange County district attorney's office, Le climbed off a mattress she was sharing with her 5-year-old and 3-year-old daughters before dawn on Sept. 16, 2009, walked into the kitchen of her cousin's Westminster home and came back with a knife.

Prosecutors said Le stabbed the girls in the chest as they lay on the mattress in the family room, then stabbed herself nearly 25 times. The older girl's wound reached her heart, and she underwent emergency open-heart surgery at UC Irvine Medical Center. The younger child's wound missed her vital organs.

Le called 911 after the stabbings, according to the district attorney's office. Westminster police said she later admitted to officers that she had stabbed her children and tried to kill herself. She was booked on suspicion of attempted murder once she was released from the hospital.

Prosecutors charged Le, then 38, with two felony counts each of attempted murder and child abuse and endangerment, along with sentencing enhancements for personal use of a deadly weapon and infliction of great bodily injury. She pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.

At trial, three doctors testified that Le had mental health problems. Her public defender argued she was in a psychotic state after losing her home and her business and after her grandmother's death, and that she believed she and her daughters needed to be "cleansed." Prosecutors countered that Le had planned the attack out of anger over a failing relationship with the girls' father, calling it "an angry act, a selfish act" meant to get his attention.

A jury convicted Le on Feb. 4, 2014. A second jury, hearing the case after the first deadlocked on the question, found in October 2014 that the attack had been premeditated. On Oct. 31, 2014, jurors rejected her insanity defense, finding her legally sane at the time of the stabbings. Le, by then 43 and living in Garden Grove, was sentenced Jan. 23, 2015, the district attorney's office said.