Georgia: Woman sentenced to death for murder of daughter-in-law

ATLANTA (AP) — A woman has been sentenced to death by lethal injection for letting her stepdaughter starve to death in an Atlanta suburb in 2013.

Tiffany Moss, 36, showed no emotion as the Gwinnett County jury handed down the death sentence Tuesday morning, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

On Monday, Moss was found guilty on all counts, including murder, child cruelty and attempting to cover up the death of 10-year-old Emani Moss by burning her body in a trash can.

Moss represented herself at trial and presented no defense. She made no opening statements or closing arguments and called no witnesses.

His death sentence was the first handed down in Georgia in more than five years.

At trial, prosecutors painted a damning picture of Moss, who they said kept his young stepdaughter confined to a bedroom in their Lawrenceville-area apartment, slowly starving her to death.

A forensic doctor described how Emani was wasting away without food or water and living in her own bed because she had become too weak to move. Authorities say she weighed just 32 pounds (14 kilograms) when she died.

Prosecutors highlighted text messages sent by Tiffany Moss to her husband, Eman Moss, as Emani was starving. At least twice, Moss sent her husband photos of meals she had prepared for him and her two children that the couple shared.

Prosecutors said it likely took Emani weeks to starve to death.

After the girl's death, Tiffany and Eman Moss put her emaciated body in a trash can and set it on fire.

Eman Moss is serving a life sentence without parole for his role in the crime, after pleading guilty to murder in 2015 in exchange for his testimony against his wife.

Late Monday, jurors asked Gwinnett Superior Court Judge George Hutchinson if they could go home to “sleep on” the sentencing decision after reaching an impasse. The jury of six men and six women accepted the death penalty after resuming deliberations at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

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Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,