A 21-year-old Mississippi mother was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after she admitted to repeatedly slamming her 2-month-old daughter on the concrete in what the district attorney said was an “unexplainable and heinous crime.”
Multiple witnesses reported seeing Makaylia Shaylynn Jolley “grabbing a baby by the ankles and slamming the child” on May 12, 2022, Madison-Rankin District Attorney Bubba Bramlett said in a news release.
The baby, Khalysie Lashay Jolley, was taken to the hospital but died from her injuries two days later. The district attorney said she had brain swelling and bleeding, extensive skull fractures, fractures to her left thumb and right below, abrasions, and hemorrhages to her eyes.
Her death was ruled a homicide as a result of blunt force injuries to her head, according to the district attorney.
“Makaylia Jolley took Khalysie by the ankles, slammed her into the pavement multiple times, and then left her there,” Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Newman said, according to NBC affiliate WLBT of Jackson, Mississippi.
Rankin County Circuit Judge Steve Ratcliff sentenced Jolley Monday after she pleaded guilty to capital murder. She said very little during the sentencing, telling Ratcliff “no, sir” and yes, sir” when he questioned her, WLBT reported.
Bramlett told the news station that Jolley will “never get out of prison, under any circumstance.”
“She will die in prison one day,” he said.
An attorney for Jolley could not immediately be reached for comment.
On the day of the incident, the Pearl Police Department had received multiple 911 calls about Jolley’s vicious assault. When officers arrived they were told that Jolley had “slammed the baby down and left her lying in the road,” according to the district attorney’s office.
She then ran off into the woods where she was later arrested.
Jolley allegedly confessed to police that she had hurt her baby but said it was an accident, Bramlett’s office said. She told police that she did not know why she had hurt her daughter. Authorities said she had used drugs the morning of the incident, WLBT reported.
A Rankin County grand jury indicted her on capital murder last November.
The district attorney had initially sought the death penalty in the case but instead offered Jolley a plea deal. One reason she was offered the plea was to prevent witnesses, family and law enforcement from having to relive what happened, WLBT reported.
“Law enforcement, the EMTs, the firefighters, there were innocent people … the apartment owner witnessed it. The victim’s grandmother witnessed it. A truck driver witnessed it. A sweet lady who was going to call on a patient and just happened to be dropping by saw these terrible things,” Newman said. “I don’t believe you can ever get those images out of your mind.”
Those bystanders, Bramlett said in the news release, “will never forget.”
