A Chester woman was sentenced to decades in prison for killing her infant daughter

Li’Aziah Thomas didn’t live long enough to see her second birthday, and died at the hands of someone she trusted most: Her mother.

And after three years of what Delaware County prosecutors described as attempts to obscure their investigation and dodge responsibility, Kandie Meinhart admitted that she beat her youngest daughter to death. Meinhart, 34, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, conspiracy, and endangering the welfare of a child, and was sentenced Thursday to 30-to-60 years in state prison.

The plea spared Meinhart from first-degree murder and the life sentence it carries upon conviction.

Meinhart offered a tearful apology to the family members and law enforcement officials who filled Delaware County Court Judge Kevin Kelly’s courtroom.

“All I can say is that I’m sorry. I just would like to get this over with,” Meinhart said. “I don’t want the family or my children to go through any more of the pain they’re going through.”

Assistant District Attorney Kristen Kemp acknowledged that Meinhart had accepted responsibility. But she said that Meinhart’s expressions of remorse stood in stark contrast to her evasive actions in the last three years.

“What this child experienced in the hours leading up to her death, no adult can imagine. The fear, the extreme amount of pain,” Kemp said Thursday.

“But it’s not just what happened to this child that I want the court to pay attention to,” the prosecutor added. “All of the defendant’s lies made this investigation that much more difficult, made getting to the truth of what happened to this child that much more difficult.”

Li’Aziah was found dead Jan. 20, 2021 inside the second-floor apartment in Chester where Meinhart lived with her boyfriend, Maurice Davis, and her other children. The infant had severe bruising on her buttocks as well as her back and sides, some of which look liked knuckle marks. The blow that killed her, Kemp said, was so severe that it lacerated Li’Aziah’s liver and caused internal bleeding.

When paramedics arrived, Meinhart was performing CPR on the clearly dead child, who already showed signs of rigor mortis. One medic later testified at a preliminary hearing that she overheard Meinhart tell Li’Aziah’s father “Your bitch is dead” on a phone call.

Davis, 32, also faces criminal charges in Li’Aziah’s death, including first-degree murder. Prosecutors offered him a similar plea deal to the one Meinhart accepted, but it was unclear Friday if he planned to agree to it before the scheduled start of his trial on Monday.

His attorney’ Michael Malloy, did not return a request for comment.

» READ MORE: A 12-year-old died malnourished and abused. Her family is demanding change, wondering how warning signs were ignored.

At the time of the couple’s arrests, Meinhart seemed more preoccupied, Kemp said, with protecting herself and Davis. She lied to detectives, saying neither she nor Davis was home at the time of the child’s death, and denied that Davis lived with her.

In the six months between her arrest and Li’Aziah’s death, Meinhart showed a lack of remorse, according to Kemp.

She publicly professed her innocence on “The Steve Wilkos Show,” saying she had passed a polygraph test. A GoFundMe she started to help with funeral expenses for her daughter instead paid for a vacation to Miami that she later posted about on Facebook.

Meinhart’s attorney, Mary Elizabeth Welch, said it was inappropriate for prosecutors to say her client had no remorse. She had a troubled childhood, and struggled throughout her adult life with abusive relationships, as well as housing and job instability, the lawyer said.

“This has been a long road, but we are here,” Welch said. “It’s filled with conflicting emotions and feelings, and it’s an extremely sad day for everyone. Kandie Meinhart loved her daughter, and she is taking accountability.”

Michele Rice, Li’Aziah’s paternal grandmother, wrote in a victim-impact letter read in court that she and her family continue to struggle with their grief. Rice called the girl her birthday present, because the child was born the day after her birthday.

“I still can’t grasp that she was taken from us by some evil hands, some of which were her own mother’s,” Rice said. “I miss her every day. The hole in my heart will never heal.”