A 56-year-old former registered nurse and adoptive mother of three from Florida will spend the rest of her life in prison for murdering her 7-year-old adopted daughter, beating, starving, and torturing her to death while nearly killing the victim’s siblings.
Gina Emmanuel was sentenced to life in a state correctional facility without the possibility of parole on Wednesday by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cristina Miranda for the horrific 2018 slaying of young Samayah Emmanuel, according to court records.
Emmanuel was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder in Samayah’s death by a Miami jury earlier this month. Jurors also found her guilty of two counts of aggravated child abuse for the brutal treatment of Samaya’s siblings, who were five and twelve years old at the time of her death.
Several members of the victims’ families attended the sentencing hearing on Thursday, including Emmanuel’s oldest adopted daughter, Ayanna Gordon, who is now 18. Gordon spoke during the hearing and addressed Emmanuel directly.
“Don’t commit the crime if you can’t serve the time. I’m letting God take the wheel. “With that said, I wish you well in hell,” she said, reportedly quoting rapper Cardi B, according to Miami CBS affiliate WFOR.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Emmanuel subjected her children to a variety of forms of torture, including forcing them to eat human feces, intentionally burning them on the stove, chaining them to chairs, physically abusing them, and withholding food and water.
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Gordon also testified against her mother during the three-day trial, detailing the horrors she and her sisters experienced at the hands of their mother, according to Miami NBC affiliate WTVJ.
“She would chain us, have us lay down, and chain and lock us until she got back,” the daughter reportedly told jurors.
During the trial, prosecutors claimed that Emmanuel, who fostered the children before adopting them, was fixated on having complete control over her daughters’ lives and enforced her rules through heinous abuse, according to Miami ABC affiliate WPLG.
“You will learn about the defendant’s control during this trial,” prosecutors reportedly said during opening statements. “You will hear that she kept her refrigerator chained. The three girls were forced to urinate and defecate in a bucket. They were malnourished, whipped, and did not visit a pediatrician. “What else would happen as a result of her decisions?”
Emmanuel’s defense attorney reportedly claimed that the registered nurse used “reasonable corporal punishment” that did not constitute child abuse, and that Samaya’s death was primarily due to untreated diabetes.
Should she have taken the child to the hospital? Yes, absolutely, but it was not murder. “It was not child abuse,” her attorney reportedly told the jury.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle praised the verdict after jurors found Emmanuel guilty of her daughter’s murder.
“The guilty verdict in Gina Emmanuel’s first-degree murder and child abuse trial brought to light the horrors 7-year-old Samaya so tragically suffered before her death,” Rundle said in a statement after jurors convicted Emmanuel.
No one could have imagined that a trained nurse would beat, torture, and starve Samaya and her two adopted sisters to instill the defendant’s vision of discipline. The jury fully understood that she ultimately ignored young Samaya’s suffering, which resulted in her death.
