Sentenced: Canonsburg Couple Facing Charges In 3MO's Death

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Canonsburg police are looking for two parents, Shannon McKnight, 23, and James May, 31 in connection with the death of a 3-month-old

Police say officers responded to the couple’s home and found the baby wasn't breathing. She was taken to the hospital where she later died.

The couple's other child, a 16-month-old boy was taken to children's hospital where cocaine and fentanyl were found in his system.

MSN

 

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Naveah Gabrielle May

 

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The Canonsburg mother whose infant daughter died from fentanyl poisoning in 2022 will serve time in prison after she pleaded guilty to a lesser drug charge Tuesday in a similar plea deal the child’s father accepted last week.

Shannon McKnight cried as she spoke to Judge Valarie Costanzo during her sentencing hearing at the Washington County Courthouse in which she said the death of her 3-month-old daughter, Navaeah, was a “tragic accident.”

“No words can even begin to explain the pain I feel,” McKnight told Costanzo. “My heart is broken. I would do anything to bring my baby daughter back.”

Navaeah died Aug. 11, 2022, after she became unresponsive while sleeping in bed with McKnight and her father, James May IV, inside the couple’s First Street residence. The bedroom was littered with drugs and paraphernalia, and an autopsy revealed the presence of fentanyl in Navaeah’s system at the time of her death. Her 16-month-old brother was also sickened by the drug, but survived.

McKnight, 26, pleaded guilty Tuesday to one felony count of drug delivery resulting in death, and Costanzo immediately sentenced her to serve 10 to 20 years in a state prison as part of the negotiated plea. May, 34, took an identical plea Thursday and was sentenced to the same prison term. Both will be given credit for time served since they’ve been held without bond at the Washington County jail since their arrest a week after Navaeah’s death.

While McKnight didn’t go as far as May when he theorized during his sentencing Thursday that the infant died from “co-sleeping” with them, she did tell Costanzo that she disagreed with the circumstances surrounding the plea agreement.

“I’ve been going through hell behind these walls,” McKnight said of her time in jail. “We’re not horrible people. We just made bad mistakes.”

McKnight said she hasn’t been able to properly grieve her daughter’s death and has not been offered counseling to deal with the loss, although neither she nor May attended Navaeah’s funeral because they were on the run from authorities at the time. Shortly after Navaeah died at Canonsburg Hospital, police were unable to locate May and McKnight for about a week until they were found at an acquaintance’s Canton Township home, hiding in an attic crawl space.

McKnight and May had originally been charged with criminal homicide and were facing the possibility of the death penalty if they had been convicted of first-degree murder. But investigators were unable to determine how the fentanyl entered Navaeah’s body, and the death penalty was eventually removed from consideration and a plea deal was offered.

Canonsburg mother whose infant daughter died from fentanyl pleads guilty to drug charge

The Canonsburg mother whose infant daughter died from fentanyl poisoning in 2022 will serve time in prison after she pleaded guilty to a lesser drug charge Tuesday in a similar plea deal the child’s father accepted last week. Shannon McKnight cried as she spoke to Judge Valarie Costanzo during...

www.observer-reporter.com

You stupid cunt you would not have to grieve your daughter if you did not kill her.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Navaeah is a name that should be retire....so much bad luck attached to it and it is not even a pretty name.