Mother jailed for killing son appeals 20 year prison sentence

Convicted child killer Sonia King, through her attorney Mark Conway, has filed an appeal with Guyana’s Appellate Court to reduce a 20-year prison sentence, which was recently

imposed by Justice Navindra Singh, after she admitted to the lesser count of manslaughter.
King’s appeal is being filed on the grounds that Justice Singh had failed to recognise the convicted killer’s psychological condition – which should have been considered as a mitigating factor at the time the offence was committed and further that the sentence imposed was of a severe nature.
The mother of two had pleaded guilty to killing her eight-year-old son while he was asleep on February 21, 2016. Justice Singh, who had heard the matter on July 18, sentenced the woman to serve 20 years for the crime.
Reports are that King initially claimed that the child fell from a guava tree during the afternoon of February 21 after which he retired to bed. At about 22:00h, the mother had claimed that she went to check on the child but found him in a motionless state.
He was taken to the West Demerara Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. However, she later confessed that she killed the child because of frustration, saying that she took a bed sheet and choked the child to death while he was sleeping.
After the incident, King reportedly confessed to her husband to killing the child. She was arrested after confessing to investigators.