COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A Cobb County mother will spend the rest of her life in prison after pleading guilty to killing her 5-year-old daughter three years ago.
Attorneys for Shekinah Akbar entered a guilty but mentally ill plea to felony murder and cruelty to children in the first degree in regard to the death of her child on February 10, 2020.
Akbar, who was 30 years old at the time, called 911 and reported that her neighbors tortured and beat her daughter. Prosecutors said the mother also told dispatch neighbors locked her and her daughter in the bathroom for hours, adding the 5-year-old was no longer alive. Throughout the case, prosecutors said this was proven to be a false narrative.
Marietta firefighters did find the child lifeless in the bedroom at Cumberland Crossing Apartments and her tracheotomy tube, used to help the child breathe, was removed. The child was rushed to Kennestone Hospital, where she died.
"The child's body was covered in dozens of bite marks, including on the child's nose, cheek, neck, ear, chest, arms, legs, and hands," a news release from the district attorney's office read. "The child also had serious abrasions to her neck surrounding her indwelling tracheotomy site which she had due to a medical history of Pierre-Robin Sequence."
Akbar was interviewed at Cobb County Police Department headquarters, where she told authorities that she was "performing an exorcism" on her daughter, prosecutors said, adding "she was trying to cast out evil spirits." During the interview, she admitted to hitting and biting her daughter – while describing she put her hands in and over the child's mouth.
When asked about the number of injuries found on the child, Akbar said she didn't remember hurting her daughter that much and denied killing her, the DA's office said. Akbar was ultimately arrested and accused of murdering her daughter.
“This beautiful little girl was brutally tortured, bitten, and abused for upwards of 12 hours by the one person in the world who is supposed to love her unconditionally and protect her at all costs," Senior Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Green said in a prepared statement. "It is unfathomable the betrayal she must’ve felt.”
Judge Robert D. Leonard II accepted Akbar's plea on Monday, Feb. 20 and was sentenced to life in prison.