WASHINGTON — A teen girl who police say stabbed a 16-year-old girl to death over McDonald's sauce earlier this year in Northwest D.C. has taken a plea deal.
WUSA9 first told you about this story back in August. Just one day before starting her junior year at Thomas Stone High School in Waldorf, Naima Leggon went to a D.C. house party with friends. A fight broke out and Naima ended up being stabbed twice by a girl with a 7.5-inch knife.
Naima’s grieving mother, Joy Liggon, said she’s disappointed in the plea deal that means her daughter’s killer could get out of jail by the time she’s 21.
"There are days I can’t even get out of bed," Joy Liggon said the day after the plea deal.
It’s been just three months since Joy Liggon's 16-year-old daughter was killed and just one day since she heard and watched the gruesome details of the deadly stabbing at the hearing for the teenager charged with killing her daughter. According to Joy Liggon and reports from the Washington Post, prosecutors said Naima and friends stopped at the McDonald’s on 14th and U Streets, NW early in the morning on Aug. 27. They had just left a house party. An argument between two of the girls got physical, Naima stepped in to break up the fight and she was stabbed in the abdomen and then in the chest. The defense attorney described it as self-defense.
“I saw the video -- it was not self-defense,” Joy Liggon said. “When she was retreating, you turned her around and stabbed her in the chest.”
Joy Liggon feels the case against the 16-year-old girl was strong and she wanted to go to trial on first-degree murder charges. Instead, D.C.’s attorney general accepted a plea deal on two lower charges: voluntary manslaughter while armed and carrying a dangerous weapon. The teenager now faces the maximum juvenile sentence of detention until she is 21. The judge will have the ultimate say in the sentencing hearing in January.
“There is no guarantee,” Joy Liggon said. "The judge could give her two years of probation.”
According to the American Bar Association, 98% of cases nationwide are settled in plea deals. A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office sent WUSA9 a statement that read:
In each case, our prosecutors evaluate which charges we have sufficient evidence to prove, the juvenile’s criminal history, as well as the certainty of outcome that can be achieved through pre-trial negotiations, amongst other factors. In each instance we make a determination based on what is in the best interest of District residents and what will improve public safety in the short and long term.
“I wanted to go to trial and let a judge decide if it’s first degree or second degree, but to plea to voluntary manslaughter -- it just doesn’t seem fair," Joy Liggon said.
Joy Liggon plans to read a victim impact statement at the 16-year-old girl's sentencing hearing. Her next step is continued healing and establishing a nonprofit organization in her daughter’s name.