Court upholds conviction for Augusta mother who fatally stabbed 2-year-old

The Supreme Court of Georgia on Tuesday upheld the murder conviction and life prison sentence for an Augusta mother who killed her 2-year-old daughter on May 2, 2013.

Marina Mae Middlebrooks, 38, of Augusta, is serving a life sentence plus 20 years for the murder of her daughter, Sky Lyric Allen.

Middlebrooks had entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, according to previous reporting. She was found in her wrecked vehicle on Ray Owens Road in Appling on May 2, 2013 wearing only a hoodie inside the blood-soaked front seat.

A paramedic found Sky naked on the front seat floorboard with a stab wound to the neck, according to the article. Middlebrooks, who also had a knife wound to the neck, said she believed the only way she and her daughter could get into heaven was by suicide, and that they had to be naked in order to do so.

Middlebrooks was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic in 2011, according to previous reporting.

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Two other Augustans' convictions upheld

Two other Richmond County convictions were upheld Tuesday by the state Supreme Court.

Jonathan Tavarus Evans, 28, was convicted of murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime in March 2020.

Jeremy Gene Taylor, 42, of Swainsboro, was convicted of murder in December 2013 in connection to the fatal beating of 48-year-old Earl Alphonzo Bolar, of Waynesboro, in a Richmond County jail holding cell.

Before the trial began, Taylor was offered a plea negotiation for a life sentence with the possibility of parole but rejected it repeatedly, according to previous reporting.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Conviction upheld for Augusta mother accused of killing 2-year-old