Why was lionel tate charged with first degree murder?
I was living in Florida at the time this happened. The six-year-old girl he killed attended the same church as one of my neighbors. The reason he was charged with first degree murder was because his mother refused to accept a plea deal that would have allowed him to plead guilty to a lesser charge and serve a three year jail sentence. It was an unfortunate decision since it was clear he didn’t intend to kill the girl. It was that he was much larger than she was and he got too rough with her while imitating wrestling moves he had seen on TV.
