Lawyer appeals 20-year sentence for mother who killed son with bed sheet

Attorney-at-law Mark Conway has filed an appeal with the Appeal Court against the 20-year jail sentence imposed on his client, 31-year-old Sonya King who killed her eight-year-old son in 2016 by suffocating him with a bed sheet.

On July 16, King was sentenced by Justice Navindra Singh at the Demerara High Court after pleading guilty to the offence of manslaughter.

King admitted that on February 21, 2016, while at La Parfaite Harmonie West Bank Demerara, she killed her son, Emmanuel King.

One of the grounds of the appeal is that Justice Singh failed and or neglected to consider mitigating circumstances that arose as it relates to King’s mental state at the time she committed the offence.

Attorney Conway, in his appeal, also noted that the 20-year prison sentence imposed on King by Justice Singh was severe given the circumstances of the case.

In a caution statement, the woman had confessed to the crime and had told Police, “Ah just hold him down, meh son was kicking up with his foot. Ah hold down the sheet there until he stop moving and then I go and call Robert [King’s reputed husband and the child’s stepfather] and tell he I kill Emmanuel.”

At the time of the crime, King was eight months pregnant.