Law&Crime Sidebar - Young Girl Viciously Beaten to Death by Dad's Girlfriend as 100-Pound Dog Attacked Her: Cops

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Lake County deputies say Tyshael Martin, 34, encouraged her rottweiler to attack her boyfriend’s 9-year-old daughter, Jamaria. Investigators found security camera footage they say shows Martin hitting and kicking Jamaria before allegedly saying “I’m fixin’ to kill her.” Law&Crime’s Sierra Gillespie with Florida criminal defense attorney Melba Pearson about the disturbing allegations.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/lctakeover to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.GUEST HOST:Sierra Gillespie https://x.com/sierragillespieLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. It is a warrant that was issued for one count of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated child abuse, and one count of child neglect. Police in Florida say a woman who showed off her bonus daughter on social media is accused of sicking her dog on the young child. And police say the deadly attack was all caught on camera. We're taking a deep dive into this sickening evidence against the suspect with former prosecutor Melba Pearson.

Welcome to Sidebar presented by Law and Crime. I'm Sierra Gillespie. It's been weeks since 9-year-old Jamaria Simmons was found inside her Montverd-Florida home, naked and unresponsive. First responders say they found cuts, bruises, burns, and even possible bite marks on the girl. EMTs noted that she was already cold to the touch when they arrived. Lake County deputies started a child abuse investigation, which they now say is one of the worst cases they've seen in decades. They got a warrant to get their hands on the video from the home security system. The video came from the night of June 15th.

two days before emergency personnel responded to a 911 call about Jamaria, and the video was shocking. According to detectives, 34-year-old Tyshell Martin could be seen directing her 100-pound Rottweiler to attack Jamaria. Deputies say Martin was holding the dog's leash during the attack, and she was also reportedly seen kicking Jamaria repeatedly. The video then reportedly shows Martin dragging a limp Jamaria across the room continuing to hit her. She was possibly also heard saying, I'm fixin to kill her, according to the sheriff's office. Tyshell Martin was the girlfriend of Jamaria's father. Martin often posted about her blended family with Lohan Simmons and called Jamaria her bonus daughter. In fact, in January of this year, Martin posted a photo of

Gemaria, who she often called Mary for her last birthday, saying May 9 be great to her with a heart emoji. Also posted on the social media was a photo of her pet Rottweiler. Now, according to social media posts and to neighbors, Jamaria's mom had recently died from leukemia. Officials with the sheriff's office said that at the time of Jamaria's death, they couldn't officially declare it a homicide until the autopsy was complete. But now, weeks after her death, we know that we know the medical examiner concluded the cause of death was homicide due to complications from multiple blunt injuries to her head, body, and extremities in addition to burns on her right foot. Based on the autopsy results and the new video, deputies arrested Tyshell Martin just this

week and now she's charged with three felonies. It is a warrant that was issued for one count of first degree murder, one count of aggravated child abuse and one count of child neglect. You indicated the child. you intended to hire a private attorney. We're waiving appointment of the public defender's office. Is that accurate? I already have a private attorney. You have a private attorney? Okay. So he or she will file paperwork letting the clerk's office and the judge know that he or she represents you. I didn't see any paperwork in the court file as of yet, but your lawyer will file that so that the records get updated and then I'm sure he or she will come to see you. Because of the seriousness of the charges,

Martin was automatically denied bond. According to text messages and interviews, deputies to determined that Jamaria was often punished with physical exercise, like prolonged wall sits and having to run in place with her arms raised. She was also allegedly hit with various different objects, kicked, punched, and even pinched. Now on to what we know about Luan Sessions, that's Jamaria's father. It seems like he wasn't at the home the night of his daughter's death, having flown to California, according to Martin. She told deputies during the initial investigation that the rest of the family was supposed to go meet up with him. But as it turned out, Sessions was also recently behind bars for an unrelated crime.

Weeks after Jemaria's death, the 26-year-old was arrested on an outstanding warrant from another Florida County. He'd spent three years in prison on drug charges prior to all this and was wanted allegedly for violating his probation. Jemaria's maternal grandmother told local news outlets that she'd been going through a custody battle with Jamaria's father over who would be the one to have custody. She says after Jamaria's mom died, Jamaria had been living with the grandmother. Until one day, Sessions picked up Jamaria and her five-year-old sister at school without consent, and they never went back to their grandmother's home. We dug into Martin's criminal record, which dates back to

2010, when she pled no contest to shoplifting charges in Orange County. Other citations include driving without a license, not wearing a seatbelt, and not having a child in a car seat. In 2016, Martin was charged with failure to control an animal resulting in a bite. That case was eventually dismissed by a judge. Hey, listen up. I have something you're not going to want to miss. Today, Upside is sponsoring Law and Crimes YouTube Takeover, and here's what you get out of it. Free cash. Seriously, you just download the app and the money can get transferred straight into your bank account.

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a former Florida prosecutor. Melba, thank you for coming on with us. Thank you for having me as always. Now, this story is really, really tough to talk about. And one of the things that jumped out to me right away is the question mark, could this have been prevented? Because we know way back, the father picked up our victim in this case and her sister from school at the time they were living with their grandmother. And he wasn't supposed to pick them up from school. He took them and then somehow got custody. At the time of the little girl's death, the grandma was trying to get custody back. So there's a lot of messy things going on here. But do you think it could have

been prevented had she stayed with her grandma? I think it could have been. This is probably another one of those tragic cases of where the system failed a little girl, a system failed a child. And the reality is that we know that many times those in the foster care system, those who are in the adoptive family law system, they want to do the best they can do. But oftentimes they're just so overwhelmed. There's so many cases. It's hard to stay on top of everything and everyone. There's not enough staff. There's not enough funding. So because of that, we keep seeing instances where a child falls through the cracks and sadly it results in fatal consequences. So the reality is we need to do more in terms of investing in these systems because

of the fact that our children need to be protected and we can't have situations where people who have no business having a child in their house be the primary caretaker in some way, shape, or form. It really is so tough because so many different departments are so overworked, so understaffed, and this is a need that we have, but so many different departments need extra folks working for them. But anyway, moving on to the next half of this, the defendant in our case, Tyshell, she posted on social media about our little victim, called her her bonus daughter, kind of celebrated the girl.

And it seemed, by all accounts, she loved this girl. This is her, quote, bonus daughter. She's happy to have her. And then, I don't know, is this showing that social media isn't really what it seems? That's incredibly possible because you oftentimes show an image or show a side of yourself that may not necessarily be accurate. Many times you see people, even our favorite celebrities, posting on socials and they're hugging and they're at this great red carpet event and life is so fabulous. and then you find out the next week that they're getting divorced and there was abuse or some other things going on behind the scenes.

You know, the photo, while a picture can tell a thousand words, it's not always accurate the story that it tells, right? So often we see things on social media and the reality is very far different than what is being portrayed. So it is possible that this defendant posted all these love. B-Dovey messages on socials because she wanted her partner to be happy. She wanted to show this image to the world that she's a loving stepmom and that she's a good person.

But underneath it all, she had anger and obviously resented this poor child and clearly had a great deal of hatred or at the very least dislike, but to get to the point of leasing your pet, your Rottweiler, to kill a child. that to me leans on the side of hatred more so than anything else, unless there's mental health or addiction or something else that we are not aware of at this moment. This, the facts of the case, really are gruesome and devastating. The fact that there was a dog that somehow helped perpetuate this crime.

And I know this is something that Rottweilers or Pitbulls kind of get a bad name oftentimes because they are the ones that occasionally get a bit more aggressive than others. but at the same token, oftentimes they're very friendly and nice that they're in a loving home. So I'm wondering if maybe our defendant in this case, maybe trained or rewarded the dog if he was to attack the little girl. What do you think about that? Yeah, and that's one thing. I think there's a lot of stereotypes about pit bulls and Rottweilers. I'm very much an animal lover.

And I think very much it's nature versus nurture, right? And if the dog is raised in a loving environment and is treated, you know, with love as a pet and is not trained to fight, not trained to attack, not trained to harm, then the dog generally will behave consistent to the way that the owner trained him. So in a situation like this, it leads me to believe that either the dog was trained to attack, whether it be for self-defense purposes, whether it was for dog fighting purposes, we don't know. But I think there was something in the training that allowed the dog to be able to be triggered to attack and maw at this little girl. It's usually certain types of breeze

if they see you as part of their quote-on-pop pack, as part of their household, they're generally not going to turn on you. So in order for her to get her being the defendant to get this dog to turn on the child, This either had to have been something that she had been training the dog to do over time, or again, the dog had a more violent nature based on the way that it was nurtured, and that's how this horrible tragedy came to be.

It's really tough to think about that a dog attacking a little girl. I mean, so many of us have pets are animal lovers. I cannot imagine my dog who is part of my family attacking another member of my family. attacking another member of my family. And so this may be speculation, but it does get me thinking that maybe the defendant, in this case, kind of did nurture the dog into acting more aggressive

and potentially attacking people. Also, this defendant, according to court docs, may have said that she's, quote, fixing to kill her, meaning Jamaria, the little girl. That, to me, sounds like a threat ahead of time. What do you think about that? Can that be used against her? Absolutely.

Absolutely. I would, depending on when it was said and I'm thinking more so about the time frame around premeditation. Because if this is something she said 10 minutes, 15 minutes before the attack by the dog, that to me speaks to premeditation. If it's something she said contemporaneous to the attack. So in other words, she says, I'm fixing to kill her and releases the dog. I think that's more of a case of second degree murder more so than first degree because there could be the argument that this is in the heat of passion and that, you know, she was just angry versus this is something that she had been planning to do because whatever the case may be, the child was taking too much of the financial resources from the household. Or she was jealous

at the attention that the child was receiving from her partner and she felt her partner should have been paying more attention to her, you know, any, any of a number of things. But that time frame is going to be critical in terms of determining premeditation as to whether or not this should be a first degree murder or if this should be a second degree murder. And if we're talking about time frame in general, I want to bring up when this happened. It was way back in June. And now we're approaching September. So quite a lengthy amount of time. Why do you think it would have taken so long for experts to determine this was a homicide? Well, there's a number of things that go into the investigation.

Number one, first of all, you have to understand how it was even reported. Was this reported as an accident? And did the hospital treat it as such? Because, again, you know, Rottweilers can be very dangerous dogs, again, based on how they're trained, how they were raised, et cetera. So this could have been a random accident where the dog attacked and the family member intervened too late and unfortunately it resulted in serious injury or death. So that is a realistic option. And as such, the hospital may have

considered it that way. Law enforcement may not have gotten involved until later on when maybe more evidence came to light. Maybe there were social media posts. Maybe there were other people in the household or neighbors that heard that what happened. Maybe the defendant made some admissions to other people, whatever the case may be. As all of those facts start to come to light, now law enforcement as well as the prosecutor's office are able to put together a case and then be able to build from there. Also, what's going to be very interesting is the medical examiner's report. Because remember, the medical examiner has to pretty much come back with a cause of death of homicide. If the medical examiner comes back with accidental or undetermined,

Undetermined you can still possibly work with, but it does make that trial much more difficult because the prosecutor has to prove the cause of death, which would be, let's say, a gunshot wound, stabbing, death by, you know, dog bite. And they have to also establish the manner of death, the manner of death being homicide. If it's anything short of that, it becomes an uphill battle in terms of meeting the beyond the reasonable doubt standard of proof. Just hearing what you're talking about the ways that people, unfortunately, may end their life, whether it's a gunshot wound or knife, a stabbing situation. Unfortunately, that's something we cover a lot here on sidebar, on law and crime.

Unfortunately, we see it a lot. But I have yet to see a dog attack, especially on a little girl, if that is the way that she actually died by this dog. And that also kind of gets me thinking because this took place in Florida. Florida, where we know death penalty is still kind of on the table. We just saw recently this week, Wade Wilson himself was sentenced to death. So in the most heinous of crimes, it's possible that prosecutors may seek it. And I'm wondering, just based on the severity of this, that she is a little girl killed by a dog

at the hands of her father's girlfriend. What do you think would prosecutors consider pursuing death penalty? I think they will consider it. I don't know that this is a death penalty case. And let me tell you why. While this is heinous and trocious and cruel because it's a child, there may be too many arguments in terms of why or how this happened. Did the girlfriend have mental health issues or addiction issues that may have led to this? You know, the fact that she's a child is an aggravator and that could lead to the analysis that a death penalty is a problem.

But the fact that the matter or the cause of death was by way of a Rottweiler, I don't know. I feel like there's still that argument that could be made that this was an accident or something along those lines. I think it might be a little too murky to add the death penalty to it. I still think you could charge first degree murder and waive death, which could still expose a defendant to a life sentence. so that that is an option or if they decide to go with second degree murder, again, a tactical decision because in Florida a first degree murder requires 12 jurors. A second degree murder requires six. So depending on how the facts shake out and the totality of the evidence, a prosecutor may make the decision, you know what? I'm going to file this as a second degree murder because I think I can

easily overcome the threshold a little bit better than having to try and convince 12 people and certainly 12 people to the point that they're going to vote for death. So that's why I think it would be a first-degree murder waiving death or a second-degree murder. That's kind of where I think this is going to land. We'll see what happens. That's why I wanted to talk to you because you are in Florida and you're a prosecutor, so you know what you're talking about. As far as charges, though. We know the defendant in this case is the little girl's father's girlfriend. So kind of tangled web there a bit. But I'm wondering about her dad. Is it possible that he's culpable in all of this? He's the one who introduced this defendant, his girlfriend, to his daughter. And that's why his

daughter was with her because of the father. What do you think about all that? I think another one, another legal answer. It depends, right? Because did the father know that his his girlfriend was abusive towards his daughter. I mean, that's the beginning, middle of end of it. Most of the time, we've seen so many situations where, you know, the girlfriend went to work and then the boyfriend was harming the children while she was gone. And she had no idea because she was at work all day, right?

That's why it's so important to vet who's in your house and who's taking care of your child. Because just because you're in a relationship with someone doesn't mean that they're going to love your kids and they're in. your extended family the same way you do. So it's very important to really have a sense of who you're bringing into your house and who you are allowing your children to be around.

So it is possible he didn't know her violent tendencies. But we also have to consider the other side of it that he did know and that he was either condoning it or turning a blind eye or even worse encouraging it. Again, further investigation will have to speak to that. But again, if you have a situation where this poor victim had been with her father in the past, there'd never been any issues, the school had never reported seeing bruises or any behavioral issues that could lend itself to maybe there's abuse or something going on

at home. And then all of a sudden this happens, well, then it may mean that the father is less culpable and really didn't know what was going on. You know, I hesitate to necessarily judge him until I know more of the facts, but I will always, always caution people, if you are dating and you have kids, you need to know who's in your house. You can't just bring any old person around your kids, even though you may be in love with them, even though things may be so great, you really have to protect your kids because it's your responsibility. And now this is a father who one would think is grieving deeply and thinking he made a very, very poor choice of partner because now he's lost, you know, someone very precious to him.

Any way you spin it, this case is tragic and devastating. But Melba, thank you for coming on and kind of explaining us a bit more about this case. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. That's all for Sidebar today, but make sure that you subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Sierra Gillespie, and this was Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.