Family to woman after emotional reaction to sentencing in girl's murder: 'You are not the victim'

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The Tomball woman convicted of beating her boyfriend's 4-year-old daughter to death learned her fate Wednesday.

Only Eyewitness News was in the courtroom when Shawna Hooey was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Hooey and members of her family burst into tears as the verdict was read, prompting a rebuke from the victim's grandmother as she read an impact statement after the sentencing.

"You are not the victim, Shawna," Vonda Harris said.

Prosecutors said Hooey, who has five children of her own, used a blunt object to beat Ja'Kyzia Alexander to death at her home on Sept. 7, 2019.

"For her to cry now, I don't understand that because she didn't cry through any of her statements or any of the police investigating," Harris said.

It's unknown what Hooey's motive was since she repeatedly denied committing the crime.

On the day of the murder, prosecutors said she took Ja'Kyzia to an emergency room and told staff two different versions of what happened. In one, she claimed Ja'Kyzia rammed herself into a toilet roll dispenser. In another, she claimed it was a door knob.

"My niece was barely 30 pounds. So how she could cause deep bruising in her head and make her spine come unattached to her body, I'll never know," April Alexander, the victim's aunt, said.

The medical examiner found brain bleeding, bleeding at the base of Ja'Kyzia's eyes, and multiple bruises. There was also evidence that some of the girl's injuries were one to two weeks old.

"She was a big part of our life. We don't have a lot of girls in our family, so it's a huge missing part of our life," Alexander said.

"It's hard. For four years, it's been just miserable," Harris said.

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