NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. – A young Georgia couple high on meth were found guilty of murdering their infant, according to a report.
FOX 5 Atlanta reported that Courtney Marie Bell and Christopher McNabb would face harsh sentences for the death of their 15-day-old daughter, Caliyah, in 2017.
McNabb was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 10 years.
Bell was sentenced to 30 years in prison, plus another 10-year sentence to serve concurrently.
The jury convicted the Georgia couple in an hour.
The pair reported their daughter missing; the girl was found in a bag that belonged to McNabb.
Defense attorneys told the jury that they may not like the tattoos covering McNabb’s face, the fact that McNabb beat Bell, or the fact that the couple used drugs, but that doesn’t make them guilty of murder.
Defense attorney Brian Frost, who represents Bell, said: “Nothing my client did caused that death. All of you know what caused that child’s death. That’s nothing my client did or could’ve prevented.”
The defense argued someone came into the couple’s mobile home on the morning of Oct. 7, 2017 while they slept and took the girl and the bag belonging to McNabb that the child’s body was found in.
But prosecutors painted a different picture of the Georgia couple.
“All this fake crying and fake tears he did during the interviews about how much he loved his children and that he did in the courtroom are a joke,” District Attorney Layla Zon said.
Zon told jurors all of the evidence pointed to McNabb as the killer. The prosecutor added while the state doesn’t believe Bell physically murdered her child, they believe her negligence contributed to the child’s death.
Zon argued McNabb was manipulative and didn’t love Bell or Caliyah.
“That child didn’t do anything but need love, and her daddy killed her,” Zon said.
During her sentencing, Bell said, “Y’all know I didn’t do this.”
Superior Court Judge John Ott told Bell her actions “flies in the face of what any mother would do” by using meth, according to the news agency.
