A woman who was convicted of killing a toddler at a daycare facility back in 2011 is sentenced to life in prison, according to multiple reports.
As reported by CBS 46, Maria Owens, a 51-year-old woman was sentenced to life after being convicted of killing Jaylen Kelly back in 2011, just before Jaylen’s first birthday.
As stated in a media release issued by the Office of the Fulton County District Attorney, Owens is convicted of murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and cruelty to children in the first degree.
The incident occurred in Owens’s house in Fairburn on June 1, 2011, according to the news outlet. According to prosecutors, Owens was operating an unlicensed daycare center.
According to the media release, Jaylen Kelly and his sister were left by their parents at Owens’s house, and on the same day, they informed Owens that they planned to move Kelly and his sister to a more structured environment. At the time of the incident, Jaylen and his sister were the only children that Owens was looking after. They were Owens’s only source of income, and she was undergoing the process of divorcing her husband.
The media release stated that an hour after learning about this decision, Owens contacted authorities to let them know that Jaylen was unresponsive and not breathing. He was then transported to a local hospital and then flown to the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta-Egleston.
However, Jaylen did not survive his injuries and died shortly afterward. During the autopsy, authorities found that the toddler had a fractured spine, and at the time, had lost nearly half of his blood volume.
District Attorney Paul Howard said that the medical examiner believed the toddler might have been slammed down either into the side of a bathtub or on to the floor, according to CBS 46.
As stated by the media release, Owens admitted to striking the toddler, but claimed that she only did so in “attempting to help Jaylen cough to relieve issues related to bronchitis.” However, the medical examiner stated that the amount of force that Owens claimed would not have enough impact to result in the fractured spine—it would take much more power to result in that kind of injury.
Owens was sentenced back in 2013 to 10 years for “involuntary manslaughter and felony murder” however, the Fulton County District Attorney appealed the conviction. The media release stated that the “Georgia Supreme Court ruled that an error on the verdict form impacted the jury’s verdict,” and reversed the conviction.
Owens was retried and sentenced to life in prison, the media release stated.
