WISCASSET, Maine — Superior Court Justice William Stokes sentenced Shawna Gatto to 50 years for the murder of 4-year-old Kendall Chick.
After a week-long trial in April, Stokes found Gatto guilty of depraved indifference murder.
Chick was the granddaughter of Gatto’s fiance, Stephen Hood. The Maine Department of Health and Human Services removed Chick from her mother’s custody and placed her with Gatto and Hood three years before her death on Dec. 8, 2017.
Prosecutors had sought a 65-year sentence. In arguing for that penalty, Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber told Stokes on Tuesday that Chick suffered “excruciating pain over an extended period of time” before her death.
Arguing that “torture” and “extreme cruelty,” Chick’s age, and that Gatto has not taken responsibility for the death are all aggravating factors, Macomber said, “This was the ultimated act of domestic violence — the beating death over a period of months of a child by her primary caregiver.”
During the trial, experts from the Maine State Police crime lab testified that Chick’s DNA and what they surmised to be her blood stains had been found throughout the Wiscasset home she shared with Gatto and Hood. The state’s medical examiner also testified that Chick died from blunt force trauma to her head, a “catastrophic” traumatic injury to her abdomen and chronic “child abuse syndrome,” or multiple injuries to many parts of her body over time.
Macomber said the public has been “shocked and horrified” by the case, and that it has led to legislative and executive-branch hearings to prevent such crimes in the future.
But Gatto’s attorney, Jeremy Pratt, responded that any death affects the community, not just Chick’s. He also said that Gatto’s failure to take responsibility cannot be seen as an aggravating factor because that was a decision by her attorneys.
Pratt asked Stokes to sentence Gatto to 30 years, citing her age and “strong prospects for rehabilitation” as mitigating factors.
Adding that Gatto “is not a monster,” Pratt said, “She’s someone worth giving an opportunity to to get out before she dies in prison. She is someone who has value to give back.”