DESHAUNSAY SYKES-CROWDER - 6 yo (2008) - Madison OH

A former Madison woman will spend 15 years behind
bars for beating her 6-year-old niece to death last year.

Lynda Sykes, 46, pleaded guilty last week in Cuyahoga County
Common Pleas Court in Cleveland to involuntary manslaughter and
child endangering for the death of Deshaunsay Sykes-Crowder, for
whom she had been guardian. Sykes originally had been charged with
aggravated murder and could have faced the death penalty under Ohio
law.

Sykes had been scheduled for a trial this week.

Judge Michael P. Donnelly sentenced Sykes immediately after
accepting her plea.

Deshaunsay died on July 16, 2008. Sykes initially told Cleveland
police that her niece's death was an accident. She drove
Deshaunsay's lifeless body to MetroHealth Medical Center, claiming
the girl drowned in a Cleveland park.

But Cleveland police determined there were too many
inconsistencies in her story. Police received no calls for
assistance at the park and heard no reports of a drowning.

An autopsy found that Deshaunsay was beaten and possibly
suffocated.

Sykes had been awarded custody of Deshaunsay by a Dane County
court in 2005 after the girl's mother, Gloria Sykes, had moved to
Texas without her. The decision was made despite Sykes' history of
violent crime that dates back to the 1980s. Deshaunsay's father was
never involved in the girl's life.

Sykes and Deshaunsay moved to Cleveland in September 2005. The
Dane County Department of Human Services later that year considered
asking Sykes to bring Deshaunsay back to Madison for a review of
her needs but decided against it.

A state review of that decision after Deshaunsay's death
questioned whether the Dane County Department of Human Services was
correct in not pursuing that review.

The Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services
had also investigated after receiving a tip about possible abuse of
the girl. The agency removed Deshaunsay from Sykes' care in May
2007 but returned her a few months later, convinced that Sykes
would provide a good home, according to court records.