Posted on 12/19/2005 6:40:52 PM PST by mcg2000
MARYVILLE, Tenn. A mother charged in the shooting death of a man she said raped her young daughter was sentenced to four years in prison today.
Authorities say Kimberly Cunningham must serve nearly a third of the sentence before being eligible for parole, The Knoxville News Sentinel reports.
Her attorney Bruce Poston told Blount County Circuit Court Judge D. Kelly Thomas that he would appeal the sentence.
In October Cunningham was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Coy Hundley, her daughter's uncle.
Cunningham was tried on a charge of first-degree murder in April in the case, but the jury acquitted her of that charge and deadlocked on all lesser charges.
Cunningham has served about two months in jail since the October 7th 2003 killing and Poston said that would be deducted from her sentence.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Oh I am so deeply sad over what you and your cousins went through. How terrible your parents did not listen to and do something about what was happening. I hope and pray you all find peace and happiness as well. God help the perverts who hurt children. They will pay. They will. Good luck to you and to your cousins.
O Brother, where art thou?
Rotting in hell, I hope.
"I read about one mother who sat in her car in her garage with her little daughter until they were both dead because she knew if she ran off with the daughter to protect her from the molesting ex-husband, and got caught later,then the ex-husband would get custody"
Dear God.
What a choice to make.
There's always someone worse off than you are, I reckon.
Appealing this sentance would be a big mistake, she only has to serve a little over a year.
I dont know how peoples trigger fingers were slow , Didnt they kil a couple of innocent men?
There was a somewhat similar case in Houston TX, where the judge (Mary Bacon) threw out the charges. The difference was the father caught the rapist in the act.
I am very grateful for all prayers that I may find peace from it.
That's all I want now, mostly because I gave up any hope of "justice" long ago.
I have no idea what he thinks about that.
He was one of the "very skilled" ones who could look you dead in the eye whilst fondling you and deny that anything untoward was happening at all.
A very chilling effect, that.
It made you doubt your sanity.
If he wouldn't admit it to me while he was doing it, I don't know whether he's ever admitted it to God and repented.
I kind of have to drop this now.
It's too upsetting.
God bless you for your concern.
Shari
The Lord will take care of those scumbags.
As for the woman who snapped and killed her child's rapist, I say shame on any jury that convicted her. Shame! How can they expect a person to act "sanely" when they're facing the reality of the horror of their child being raped?
Her entire sentence will likely be served in the Blount County Jail. It can take up to a year in Tennessee to get a person into the prison system.
Where is the crime?
I agree. Especially after about 6 months of intense torture. Suffer then die.
Just wondering, it may not be too late to protect some little girl.
oh, got it. Then it is vigilante justice. I didn't know much about the case.
Because she was retried on the remaining charges in October. It's in the story. /|\ "In October Cunningham was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter".
And no, it's not double jeopardy to re-try after a mistrial caused by a hung jury.
This isn't Vigilante Justice. This is just plain old common sense.
This needs to happen a bit more frequently. Too bad she was caught.
I guess I must have missed the part where the uncle was charged with a crime, actual evidence was presented against him, and on the basis of that evidence he was convicted. After cases such as McMartin Preschool fiasco in California and the Amirault nightmare in Massachusetts, I thought we all now understood that many kids are willing and able to lie under oath about being molested, especially if they are coached to do so.
If Cunningham killed the uncle because she had incontrovertible evidence that he was guilty of child rape, she deserves some sympathy and a reduced sentence. If instead she killed him because she believed a phony story that the kids made up to try to hurt their uncle...
More info here http://ap.oakridger.com/stories/state/tn/20051219/3504697.shtml
Mother sentenced in shooting death of daughter's alleged rapist
The Associated Press
MARYVILLE, Tenn. — A mother convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a man she said raped her young daughter was sentenced to four years in prison Monday.
Kimberly Cunningham has been acquitted twice already for a first-degree charge in April and then a second-degree charge in October for the shooting of Coy Hundley, her daughter's uncle.
Cunningham shot Hundley eight times outside the Alcoa lock company where he worked in October 2003.
"I was not a normal person that day," Cunningham told the court last October.
Cunningham quoted her daughter, then 14, as saying Hundley raped her twice when she was younger. She said Hundley laughed when she asked him about the allegations and asked what she was going to do about it.
Her lawyer, Bruce Poston, said he would try to appeal the sentence for probation or split confinement.
Cunningham will be available for parole after 30 percent of her sentence has been served.
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