BRIDGEPORT — What a difference a month makes when you are in prison.

The defiance had been crushed from Patricia Daniels.

The clenched jaw, the out-thrust chest and brightly colored outfits the former correction officer had worn since her arrest in connection with a crash that killed a woman and injured her young son two years ago were gone. Instead, she was dressed Friday in a drab gray prison outfit, her once-wild hair tied up in small braids.

She slumped in her chair at the defense table, eyes closed as she waited to hear her fate from a Superior Court judge.

As it turned out, it was bad — but not as bad as Daniels, who once described herself as “The Prophetess,” had thought. Though she faced more than 40 years in prison, state Superior Court Judge John Kavanewsky Jr. sentenced her to 20 years, suspended after 16 years in prison and followed by five years of probation.