Daphne McDaniels

It was the crime that shook the emotions of people in Quitman and the surrounding communities to the core. On July 24, 2014 two toddler sisters, Natalye Price, 3, and Gabriella Guerrero, 1, were found murdered in their apartment at Dogwood Villa Apartments in Quitman.

Last Monday, Dec. 12 the toddlers’ mother, Daphne Elizabeth McDaniels, pleaded guilty on two counts of injury to a child with intent to cause serious bodily injury. She was sentenced to 40 years in prison on the charges. McDaniels was facing two counts of capital murder for the deaths of her daughters but those charges have been dismissed.

When the girls’ bodies were first discovered police arrested McDaniels’ boyfriend at that time, T.J. Liles, for tampering with evidence and injury to a child. The tampering charge was later dismissed, but Liles still faces two counts of reckless endangerment to a child and one count of tampering with evidence after allegedly throwing drug paraphernalia into a dumpster outside of the apartment the day of the murders.

According to a June 29, 2015 indictment, McDaniels knowingly caused “serious bodily injury” to Natalye and Gabriella by hitting and kicking them. According to the document, the abuse happened sometime between March 2011 and when the two girls were found dead in July 2014.

An autopsy showed examiners found more than 30 cuts and bruises on the girls’ heads and bodies as well as internal bleeding and damaged organs. The investigation into their death started on July 24, 2014 when the girls were found dead.

Wood County District Attorney Jim Wheeler said he was unable to comment on the case because there is still a pending case in the matter of McDaniels’ then boyfriend T.J. Liles. “The sentence she received fit the charges,” Wheeler said.