Pammy Maye was convicted of aggravated murder on Tuesday after a two-day trial in Columbus for killing her 5-year-old foster child, Darnell Taylor, in 2024, WOSU Public Media reported.
The 51-year-old was also found guilty of tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse. Whether Maye killed Taylor was never in dispute during the proceedings, leaving the jury to decide if she was mentally insane at the time of the offense.
Maye confessed her crimes to police on body-worn camera footage. She told officers she suffocated Taylor with a plastic bag, wrapped his body in a sleeping bag, and drove him to a sewer drain where she left him.
Maye also told investigators she washed bed sheets because Taylor urinated in the bed as he was dying. She explained to police that she grew frustrated with Taylor’s behavior and the boy eating snacks in his bed.
After confessing to her husband, who then called the police, Maye fled in her car to Brooklyn, Ohio, where officers located and arrested her. Defense Attorney Sam Shamansky told reporters after the trial that the justice system needs reform to help people like Maye who suffer from severe mental illness but do not meet the legal threshold for insanity.
“If we had a more… a system that understood that middle ground better, this case would have never gone to trial,” Shamansky said.
Maye was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and major depression. Dr. Daniel Davis, the doctor who examined Maye’s mental health and testified on the stand, expressed doubt about whether these conditions contributed to the killing, noting that Maye was overreporting symptoms and potentially fabricating some.
“The problem with the system is that we don’t have an intermediate diminished capacity statute that deals with folks that are this ill but not insane. The only question here is where is she going to spend the rest of her life in a psychiatric setting or at Marysville,” Shamansky said.
Franklin County prosecutors and Maye’s defense attorney delivered closing arguments on Tuesday following Monday’s opening statements and witness testimony. The jury deliberated for more than two hours after receiving the case just after 11:30 a.m.
The Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment until after Maye is sentenced. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Mark Serrott will sentence Maye at a later date, where she faces a maximum punishment of life in prison.
