A Michigan man was sentenced Monday to a minimum of 18 years and nine months in prison for beating his young daughter to death in an attack, he says, was an attempt to make her a lesbian. Donovan Lamar Haynes, 23, smirked in a Flint courtroom after pleading no contest to second-degree murder for the 2011 killing of two-year-old Ti’Airra Woodward. During a pre-sentence investigation report, it was discovered that Haynes beat the girl so that she would not pursue men like him in the future. Haynes’ attorney Elbert Hatchett called him “deranged.”
Genesee Circuit Judge Joseph J. Farah sentenced Haynes to serve five to 15 years concurrently in prison for first-degree child abuse. Hatchett suggested that Haynes go through psychological counseling while in prison.
Haynes bit and beat Woodward in July 2011. The toddler was found unresponsive in the basement of his mother’s Flint Township home. The girl was rushed to hospital, but was later pronounced dead.
After her death, Flint Police Chief George Sippert said she was the youngest homicide victim he could remember in a quarter century career with the department.