Child-killer Reaves gets life in prison

A Henry County jury on Friday sentenced convicted killer Rodney Reaves to life in prison for his role in the brutal beating death of his 11-year-old daughter more than five years ago. He will be eligible for parole in 14 years.

The jury of seven women and five men took roughly 90 minutes before returning a unanimous decision to Superior Court judge Wade Crumbley.

Reaves’ defense team said afterward that they will appeal his conviction.

“I just don’t believe there was enough evidence this man beat this child,” said Gary Bowman, Rodney Reaves’ public defender.

Reaves, 42, of Stockbridge, a former Navy recruiter, had been found guilty on Wednesday of felony murder and two counts of cruelty to children in the death of Joella Reaves over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2003. Reaves was acquitted of malice murder.

Rodney Reaves’ lawyers had consistently pointed to his wife, Charlott Reaves, as the person who physically and mentally abused Joella, leading to her death. Charlott Reaves has also been charged with murder and will face trial in April.

An emotional Rodney Reaves quickly bid goodbye to family members before being led away by deputies from the Henry County Sheriff’s Department.

“I felt guilty,” he said while testifying on his own behalf earlier in the day. “Still do. I do feel guilty because I left my child with somebody I could trust, I thought. I feel guilty about this because this child asked me to help her. I feel guilty because I thought I failed her.”

Bowman said that, in hindsight, his client might have avoided conviction if he had chosen to have his 15-year-old son take the stand as a witness. Bowman did not elaborate on what Mikey Reaves, who was in the house at the time of Joella’s death, might have testified.

Flint Judicial Circuit DA Tommy Floyd said he was satisfied with the verdict and the sentence.

In testimony earlier in the day, Rodney Reaves recalled his daughter’s last days as troubled ones, with her intentionally soiling herself at one point and rubbing feces on the family refrigerator.

Joella Reaves had spoken earlier of hearing voices and of wanting to die, her father testified. Rodney Reaves admitted to restraining his daughter’s hands with speaker wire after she had begun cutting her own hair with scissors that Thanksgiving weekend.

Reaves, who has maintained his innocence, said his daughter was fine when he left town and headed back to Virginia to rejoin his ship in Norfolk.

A forensic expert provided by Reaves’ defense team has testified last week that Joella died from a single blunt trauma to the brain at the time when Rodney Reaves was not in town.

The prosecution provided other medical experts who asserted that the girl died from string of vicious beatings that lasted over several days during the holiday.

Joella was found dead in her bed on Dec. 1, 2003.

“This case is about this little girl, don’t forget that,” Floyd implored jurists prior to deliberations, briefly waving a picture of the dead girl in front of them.

“This case is about Joella and what happened to her.”

Attorneys for Charlott Reaves were in attendance for most of her husband’s trial.