Georgia woman sentenced to death for stepdaughter's starvation
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (FOX 5 Atlanta) - Tiffany Moss was sentenced to death Tuesday morning after a jury found her guilty in the 2013 murder of her 10-year-old stepdaughter, Emani Moss.
The sentencing phase of the capital murder trial began immediately after the guilty verdicts were read Monday afternoon.
In their sentencing recommendation, the jury called the death of Emani Moss "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved the depravity of the mind of the defendant."
Before she was sentenced, Tiffany Moss offered no statement, saying only "No, sir" when Chief Superior Court Judge George Hutchinson asked her if she had anything she would like to say.
Two standby attorneys said they would be filing an appeal on Moss' behalf when they left the courtroom Tuesday afternoon.
Emani's grandmother, Robyn Moss, said as she hurriedly left the courthouse, she put the case in God's hands and was pleased with the outcome.
Hutchinson sentenced Moss to death, setting the date of execution to be between June 7 and June 14, though due to the appeals process officials say it is not likely she will be executed this year.
Prosecutors charged the mother of her own two children and her husband, Eman Moss, of starving Emani to death, then dousing her body with an accelerant and setting it on fire outside of their Gwinnett County apartment in 2013.
A prosecutor brought at least three jurors to tears in closing arguments Monday morning by saying "Emani Moss lived with the evils of this world."
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Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Lisa Jones told jurors Emani ran away and would sleep outside alone in the dark in bushes rather than be in the apartment with Tiffany Moss.
"That child was nothing to her [Tiffany]. In this case, it was intent, day after day after day," Jones said.
DA Danny Porter said the surviving two Moss children had been adopted together by their foster parents.
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