Deja Taylor received a two-year prison sentence for the felony of child neglect.
A Virginia mother was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday for felony child neglect. This year, her six-year-old son shot his first-grade teacher inside a classroom.
The unidentified son of Deja Taylor fired a gun at Abigail Zwerner, a teacher, at Richneck Elementary in Newport News, Virginia, on January 6, according to the authorities.
Circuit Court Judge Christopher Papile decided during a Friday afternoon court session that Taylor ought to spend two years behind bars.
In April, Taylor was accused of felony child neglect; in August, he entered a guilty plea.
Taylor negotiated a plea agreement with the prosecution, saving himself up to five years in jail. Friday’s state sentence, however, is harsher than the state sentencing guidelines and longer than the six months that prosecutors and her defense had suggested in the plea agreement.
Prosecutors agreed to dismiss a misdemeanor count of recklessly storing a firearm as part of her plea agreement.
According to Taylor’s son, he obtained his mother’s 9mm pistol by using a drawer as a ladder to get to the top of a dresser, where it was hidden in his mother’s purse.
He shot Zwerner in front of her first-grade class after first hiding the gun in his pocket and then in his backpack.
Although Taylor first claimed to have used a trigger lock to secure her gun, investigators claim they were unable to locate one.
Friday’s sentencing follows Taylor’s 21-month federal prison sentence for possessing a firearm and using marijuana.
Her therapists claimed she had “mitigating circumstances,” such as her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder and postpartum depression. Last month, during a court hearing, one of her lawyers read a statement in which she expressed regret “for the rest of my life.”
Zwerner was shot in the upper left chest and left hand, breaking bones and puncturing a lung.
Before she passed out in the school office, she hurried her other students out of the room.
She is suing Newport News Public Schools for $40 million, claiming the administrators disregarded her requests for five surgeries since the boy had a gun. Since then, she has stopped teaching.
According to search warrants, the boy said, “I shot that (expletive) dead” and “I got my mom’s gun last night,” to a school official who put him in a restraint following the shooting.
Chilling Revelation: Unsealed Documents Expose Virginia 6-Year-Old’s Words After Shooting 1st Grade Teacher During Class
According to recently unsealed warrants, the boy allegedly boasted about possibly killing Abigail Zwerner, a teacher at Richneck Elementary School.
The startling remarks that a 6-year-old Virginia student is said to have made after pointing a gun at school and shooting his teacher in the classroom are allegedly revealed by recently unsealed search warrants.
Shortly after the shooting on January 6, 2023, the boy reportedly said, “I shot that b—- dead,” according to Amy Kovac, a reading specialist at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia. After that, Kovac hurried into the classroom to restrain the child until the police could get there.
According to the unsealed warrants, which were made public by regional media outlets on Tuesday, Kovac had heard a gunshot and seen multiple kids flee the classroom.
Abigail Zwerner, their 25-year-old teacher, also ran out, spraining her hand and upper body before collapsing in the front office and being taken to the hospital. According to the warrant, Kovac entered the classroom and discovered the boy standing by his desk with the gun on the floor next to him.
The boy added, “I did it,” according to Kovac. “I got my mom’s gun last night.”
The warrant states that earlier in the day, two students had reported to Kovac that they had seen the boy carrying a gun in his backpack. During recess, Kovac and an administrator are reported to have searched the student’s backpack, but they were unable to locate the firearm inside.
In April, Zwerner’s legal team sued the Newport News School Board and some of its administrators for $40 million.
Her attorneys argue that prior to the shooting, a number of school personnel, including Zwerner herself, had alerted the administration. Zwerner told investigators she had divided her first-grade class into two groups after recess for a reading exercise when the boy pulled out the gun during an interview at the hospital following the shooting.
The teacher claimed that she asked the boy, “What are you doing with that?” just before he shot her.
According to the warrant, Zwerner informed investigators that the student in question had been involved in several “disciplinary incidents” prior to the shooting. The warrant also states that school administrators had been notified of threats and acts of physical violence.
The former elementary school teacher from Newport News, who was assigned to Richneck Elementary School, reported to the police that the same boy who is suspected of shooting Zwerner had choked her in September 2021. Since there was no information about the alleged choking described by the kindergarten teacher in the limited school records pertaining to the boy that were obtained from Child Protective Services, the warrant notes that it is possible that this incident and others were “possibly not readily provided by Newport News Public Schools.”
Deja Taylor, the boy’s mother, is charged with two crimes—felony child neglect and misdemeanor leaving a firearm in a place where it could endanger children—even though the boy has not been charged.
On August 15, a plea hearing was set in place of a bench trial. James Ellenson, Taylor’s lawyer, has previously told WTKR that the boy’s mother experienced mental health problems after an ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage.
Taylor has also entered a guilty plea to federal charges of making a false statement when purchasing a firearm and using a controlled substance unlawfully while in possession of a firearm. In that case, her next court date is October 18.
