Mississippi man who brutally raped 5-year-old before hanging her with two pairs of socks must die, rules judge
GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI: A pedophile who hanged a five-year-old girl from a metal bar with two pairs of socks after sexually assaulting her must be executed, a judge said. The judge ruled on Thursday, May 14, that Alberto Garcia who killed Janaya Thompson in 2014 in Gulfport, Mississippi should not be spared a death sentence.
In the US state of Mississippi, if anyone gets a death sentence, that person is automatically granted an appeal against that penalty. Mississippi’s Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was “proportionate” to Garcia’s crime, and equivalent with other sentences given for similar crimes. This comes after in January 2017, Garcia admitted to the murder of Janaya. He was given the death sentence by Judge Lisa Dodson on January 25, 2017.
At the time a DNA evidence linked him to a sexual assault with prosecutors saying that the young child had suffered before her death. During a 2014 trial, Gulfport Police Detective Samuel Jewell shared the horrific details of how his officers had found Janaya’s body in an empty trailer, saying: “We found Janaya Thompson with her back against the west wall. She was hung with what we know now as two pairs of socks and that was attached to a metal bar in a small window attached to above the tub. She was suspended.”
According to earlier reports, the young girl was found a day after she went missing. A massive search led investigators to the trailer, where the body of Janaya was discovered. At the time, Garcia even told officials how the girl’s relatives knocked on his door asking for help with him joining them in the search party despite the fact that he himself killed the minor girl.
After his arrest, Garcia initially played tricks saying he had blacked out and was not sure what he might have done during that period. But later, he admitted that he was involved in the crime, but partially. The killer did that just to avoid his mother having to hear the case against him in court, with 100 pieces of evidence collected by detectives helping seal the case against him. In 2015, a year after the incident, Janaya’s father Jarmal Thompson said that he was heartbroken after his daughter’s death. He also said that he was taking the help of a therapist to deal with his depression as he still questioned why someone would sexually assault his little girl and leave her body hanging in a vacant trailer?
"I had my dark moments. Was she hungry? Why was she there? What was going on? What would make someone do something like that? It hurts me to think like that. It made me weak. It made me sick. There were days I couldn't eat. Most of the time I wouldn't talk. I box myself in. Just knowing the joy that I had in my daughter's life, she made me a proud person,” the grieving father said.
At the time, he also remembered Janaya’s voice and her adventurous spirit. "She'd venture off and discover new things. She liked everything new, and her creativity, her smile, and the word 'daddy'. It never plays out," Thompson added.