Marshawn Giles is a killer from Wisconsin who was convicted of the murder of a twenty month old girl
According to court documents Marshawn Giles would sexually assault and murder twenty month old little girl. Giles would also be convicted of the abuse of the child’s mother.
The twenty month old little girl was beaten to death and died from blunt trauma force trauma to the head. Doctors would also take note the little girl was sexually assaulted
Marshawn Giles was arrested and convicted. Giles and his lawyers are now trying to prove that he was not criminally responsible for the brutal murder due to a mental defect
Marshawn Giles Case
A Wisconsin man has been convicted in the sexual assault and killing of a 20-month-old girl and abusing the child’s mother who then was his girlfriend.
A jury on Friday found Marshawn Giles guilty of 15 charges including first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree child sexual assault resulting in great bodily harm and second-degree sexual assault. Giles had faced 18 criminal counts, but three were dropped.
Authorities have said the toddler died in 2022 in Madison from blunt force injuries to her head, leaving her with multiple skull fractures. An autopsy also noted blunt force injuries elsewhere that were consistent with sexual assault.
The second phase of Giles’ trial is expected to start next week. Defense attorneys will attempt to show he suffered from a mental disease or defect and was not criminally responsible for his actions at the time of the child’s death, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
Marshawn Giles News
Madison man who killed the 20-month-old daughter of his then-girlfriend in 2022 was found guilty Friday of the homicide and 14 other charges against him, and next week the same jury will decide whether he was insane at the time.
The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for about 90 minutes before finding Marshawn D. Giles, 25, guilty of first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree sexual assault of a child resulting in great bodily harm, second-degree sexual assault of the child’s mother and an assortment of other felonies and misdemeanors that included battery, reckless endangerment, child abuse and disorderly conduct.
Next week, in the second phase of the trial, the burden will be on Giles’ lawyers, Michael Covey and Andrea Winder, to show that Giles is not criminally responsible for his actions because he was suffering from a mental disease or defect at the time. As prosecutors presented their case against Giles this week, the defense focused on planting seeds through witness testimony to explain Giles’ behavior as unusual and extreme, which an expert could later attribute to mental illness.
The jury could get the case again as early as Tuesday. A verdict in the trial’s insanity phase does not have to be unanimous, unlike the guilt phase of the trial, with only 10 of the 12 jurors having to agree.
If found insane, Giles would not be free. He would be committed to the state Department of Health Services, almost certainly to confinement in a state mental institution. He could petition for release to community supervision every six months.
But if the jury finds Giles is not insane, he would receive automatic life prison sentences for both the homicide and the child sexual assault convictions. In addition, the second-degree sexual assault conviction carries up to 46 years of combined prison and extended supervision.
In all, the jury found Giles guilty of the homicide and sexual assault charges, child abuse, second-degree reckless endangerment, substantial battery, criminal damage to property, two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon, five counts of misdemeanor battery, and disorderly conduct.
Giles is currently finishing a prison sentence for a prior crime for which his probation was revoked. That sentence ends about a year from now.
In closing arguments, Winder challenged the evidence supporting just one of the charges, telling the jury there wasn’t enough evidence to find Giles guilty of second-degree reckless endangerment. That charge arose from an April 23, 2022, incident in which Giles fired at an outdoor light fixture at another apartment complex. Winder only urged the jury to scrutinize all of the evidence.
Deputy District Attorney Andrea Raymond, perhaps planting seeds of doubt concerning the insanity defense ahead of the trial’s second phase, told the jury that everything Giles did after April 13, 2022, when his now-former girlfriend confronted him about messages on his phone from another woman, was a conscious effort to keep power and control over the woman and her three children.
“At its core, this case is a case about domestic violence,” Raymond said as she began her closing argument.
From the time the woman confronted Giles about the messages until the early morning hours of April 25, 2022, when Giles thrashed and killed the woman’s 20-month-old daughter, Giles was trying to keep the woman from kicking him out of her life. They had only been dating for a few months when Giles moved himself into her Schroeder Road apartment, inviting along members of his own family for extended stays.
Along the way, Raymond said, angry outbursts by Giles left the woman with bruises and black eyes as Giles took control over her home and children. He threw her phone from a moving car at one point during the 13-day period, and at other times pointed a gun at her, told her to kill herself, threatened to kill her, and interfered with the relationship her children had with their extended family.
The woman, who the Wisconsin State Journal is not naming because she is a victim of sexual assault, explained what she endured from Giles in detail on Wednesday in searing, emotional testimony that left one of the jurors in tears.
“She had to describe in great detail the most painful day of her life,” Raymond said.
But aside from the woman’s testimony, the evidence was overwhelming, Raymond said, from testimony by one of the woman’s young sons to security video inside the woman’s apartment showing Giles carrying around guns and being verbally abusive. DNA evidence also showed conclusively that Giles sexually assaulted both the woman and her daughter, the latter during the 10 minutes after the woman fled naked from her apartment until police entered it, Raymond said.
