As a result, Ms. McKnight, 25, was convicted of murder in the May 2006 death of her 2-year-old daughter. The same jury will decide today the punishment Ms. McKnight will receive. A first-degree felony conviction has a punishment range of five to 99 years, or life in prison.
It took the jury an hour and 42 minutes to reach the verdict. Ms. McKnight wiped a tear from her face when she heard it.
McKnight five times changed her account of how her daughter Jameisha died.
She told one investigator that her 4-year-old son had pushed his sister into a dresser and caused her death. Assistant District Attorney Mike Waldman said this is the cause of death listed on Jameisha’s death certificate.
The latest version said her 17-year-old sister, Kimberley Lewis, kicked Jameisha in the chest, causing her to fly into a dresser and strike her head.
The first time Ms. McKnight shared this story with investigators she had spent four days in jail after being arrested on the murder charge. She said she didn’t share the information about her sister sooner because she wanted to protect her.
Ms. McKnight said that after her sister kicked Jameisha, Ms. McKnight stayed in her seat in front of a mirror where she was doing her hair.
“She (Jameisha) was talking, so I didn’t think it was that bad,” she said.
Both sisters testified that Jameisha said, “ouch, my head,” after she was injured. A forensic pathologist said the fracture in the back of Jemeisha’s skull measured 11 centimeters and was consistent with high-speed car accidents, falls from great heights or cases of abuse.
Moments after Jameisha’s injury, Ms. McKnight said, her daughter was lying unresponsive on the floor with her eyes partially open and labored breathing.
Ms. Lewis’ testimony was different.
She said she was tending to Ms. McKnight’s 5-month-old baby in a front room when she heard a thud that made her instinctively run into the bedroom where she found her injured niece.While Ms. McKnight gave several different accounts of the incident as time went on and she spoke to different people who questioned her account, Ms. Lewis told only one story from the beginning.
Witnesses testified during the trial that Ms. Lewis was more emotional and cooperative than was her sister.
Prosecutors said Ms. McKnight’s lack of emotion showed that she had disassociated herself from Jameisha.
Defense attorney Michael White argued that Ms. McKnight’s lack of emotion came from her military training.
Ms. McKight said that during a tour in Iraq from March 2004 to March 2005 she was placed on body detail where she picked up the dead bodies of civilian contractors.
“For me, it’s hard to express my emotions,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot, especially in Iraq.”
In addition, Ms. McKnight said her lack of emotion may have been tied to postpartum depression, for which she said she did not seek medical help.
Ms. McKnight’s lack of emotion hurt her credibility when she tried to explain why she was not at her injured child’s side when paramedics arrived at her home or why she didn’t ride in the ambulance with her to the hospital.
Ms. Lewis was the one who greeted and rode with paramedics to the hospital, while Ms. McKnight took more than seven minutes getting her children dressed.
Ms. McKnight said she had stayed behind because she was still breast feeding her 5-month-old boy and he would need a feeding soon.
Waldman said it was absurd that she would choose to stay with the baby when it was only a 10-minute ride to the hospital and her daughter was critically injured.
He also asked Ms. McKnight to explain how, after she had seen her sister severely injure her daughter, Ms. McKnight could then let that sister ride in the ambulance or be in a room alone with her other children. The pair also drove home from Kentucky together after Jameisha’s funeral.
“You have wrongfully accused your little sister to get out of what you’ve done,” said Kara Schneible, assistant district attorney.
“You have lied and run from the police since this got going,” Waldman said. “Why didn’t your sister run?”
Ms. McKnight testified that she was abusive to Jameisha and accepted responsibility for some of the bruises on her body, but said Ms. Lewis was abusive, too.
Ms. McKnight’s mother and sister sobbed as Waldman wrapped up the state’s case.
“If you believe what she said today, then let her walk through the back doors with you,” Waldman told jurors minutes before they began deliberating.
The sentencing phase of the trial begins today at 10 a.m.
