LaKooneshia
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The trial of a Killeen woman charged with first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter begins Monday morning in Judge Joe Carroll's 27th District Court at the Bell County Justice Complex in Belton.
Kahtisha Shontel McKnight, 25, is charged with the murder of her daughter, Jameisha, on May 18, 2007.
Jury selection is expected to take up the morning hours. Opening statements are expected to be delivered by Assistant District Attorney Mike Waldman, lead prosecutor, and McKnight's defense attorney, Michael White.
This will be the first murder trial of a 2008 calendar with eight pending and scheduled to take place throughout the year. Subpoenas have been issued to witnesses, Waldman said, and the trial is expected to conclude by the end of the week.
The first-degree murder charge carries a punishment range of from five to 99 years, or life in prison. If McKnight is found guilty, the jury will determine her sentence in the punishment phase.
According to court records, McKnight's daughter suffered a fractured skull and died from blunt-force trauma to the head. McKnight originally had taken her daughter to a local hospital and told medical personnel that the toddler hit her head.
Before the child died, McKnight changed key details of her account, court records said. The arrest affidavit included three different accounts by McKnight of how her daughter was injured.
The change in the last story came after medical examiners ruled that the description of the trauma Jameisha suffered, according to her mother, was inconsistent with the severity of the child's injuries.