Updated as of 12/18/2023 at 10:30 a.m. ET
The 6-year-old boy who shot and injured his teacher at a Virginia elementary school told his grandfather he wanted Santa Clause to bring his mother home for Christmas, per The AP. After Friday’s hearing, that won’t be a possibility for at least another four years.
Deja Taylor received her second and final sentencing on charges related to the shooting. Taylor pleaded guilty to felony child neglect over the summer and she was sentenced Friday to two years in prison. After prosecutors declined to bring charges against the, now, 7-year-old boy, they came beating down Taylor’s block to figure out how he ended up with the firearm in the first place.
Circuit Court Judge Christopher Papile said it was a result of failing to meet basic parenting obligations.
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Papile noted that “we are lucky” someone wasn’t killed at the elementary school. In admonishing Taylor, the judge said a parent’s ultimately responsibility is to “protect the child, to keep them from bad influences, to keep them from dangerous situations, to keep them healthy and nurtured. Ms. Taylor has abdicated most, if not all, of those responsibilities.”
According to The AP’s report, the two year sentence surpasses the recommendation cite in the plea deal: a maximum six months. However, she’ll also be doing time on federal charges, totaling to four years in prison.
Federal Sentencing
Taylor was sentenced last month to 21 months in prison on federal charges.
Investigators found that Taylor’s son, now 7, obtained her 9 mm handgun from her purse by climbing on top of her dresser, per an Associated Press report. Taylor previously told the police she had the gun stored in her closet with a trigger lock but investigators never discovered the lock in their search.
Police say the boy then took the gun to Richneck Elementary where staff members allegedly ignored the multiple warnings about the firearm. He made it to the classroom of Abigail Zwerner, where he shot a bullet through her hand and into her chest.
Upon the investigation, police found marijuana in her bedroom and evidence of drug use in her text messages. She pleaded guilty to use of marijuana while owning a firearm and also lying about her drug use when purchasing the firearm.
“[This] is a case that underscores the inherently dangerous nature and circumstances that arise from the caustic cocktail of mixing consistent and prolonged controlled substance use with a lethal firearm,” prosecutors argued, according to the report.
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Taylor’s attorneys had asked the judge for probation and home confinement. They argued Taylor needs counseling for issues that include schizoaffective disorder, a condition that shares symptoms with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
They also said she needs treatment for marijuana addiction.
“Addiction is a disease and incarceration is not the cure,” her attorneys wrote to the court.
Taylor’s attorneys also argued that the U.S. Supreme Court could eventually strike down the federal ban on drug users owning guns. For example, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled in August that drug users should not automatically be banned from having guns.
In a statement via her attorneys, Taylor said she was “extremely sorry” and “remorseful” for her actions and will feel this for the rest of her life. Zwerner underwent five surgeries following the shooting but still lives with bullet fragments lodged in her upper chest cavity, she said in an interview with TODAY.
The boy is in full custody of his grandfather, per The AP. Since the incident, he spent over six months in inpatient care and was found to have struggled with basic socialization, PTSD and insomnia.
His grandfather previously told reporters the boy is in the first grade and was described as “star student of the week.”