LaToshia Daniels, the former social worker who was found guilty of second-degree murder last November for the 2019 killing of Pastor Brodes Perry of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee, was sentenced to nearly 21 years in prison for her crime on Tuesday.
Despite pleas for mercy from Daniels, family members and friends, Judge Jennifer Fitzgerald said the social worker’s murder of her former lover was “senseless” and warranted a lengthy sentence.
“A broken heart does not justify someone dying,” said Fitzgerald, according to The Commercial Appeal.
Daniels is expected to serve 20 years in prison for second-degree murder, and another 11 months and 29 days for reckless endangerment concurrently.
Daniels, 46, was tried for first-degree murder and attempted murder in the April 4, 2019, shooting at the Perrys’ apartment in Collierville, Tennessee. The late pastor’s widow, Tabatha Archie, was also shot by Daniels during the 2019 attack.
Archie testified in court that she was unaware that her late husband was in a relationship with Daniels, whom she met through a church in Little Rock, Arkansas, two years before the shooting. Perry was serving as pastor of assimilation at Saint Mark Baptist Church at the time.
In her testimony during the trial, Daniels testified that Perry seduced her during a counseling session at the Arkansas church, where she was being counseled through a divorce. She stated, however, that she never meant to kill him.
“I loved Brodes. I would never intentionally hurt him,” Daniels said as she spoke in her defense on the third day of her trial in Shelby County, Tennessee, WATN-TV reported.
The prosecution tried to convince the jury that Daniels premeditated the murder through testimony that she bought the gun she used in the attack hours before the murder. Daniels, who was a licensed social worker and owned The Root Behavioral Health, specializing in anger management, insisted that she bought the gun to end her own life.
On Tuesday, Daniels, who is a mother of two boys and appears to have remarried, told the judge she was “godly sorrowful” for her actions.
“I know what I did. I wasn’t in the best of health. And I know it doesn’t take away what happened, but please know that I’m godly sorrowful. And I ask that you extend grace and mercy,” she pleaded.
Her cousin, Andreka Brock, who said Daniels is like a sister to her, told the judge that she was always the one helping others, but couldn’t get the support she needed in her darkest hour.
Read the complete articles at Christianpost.com
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