Legend Chapelle dressed as Spider-Man on his 6th birthday (Fox 4 screengrab), Shamaiya Hall (Ellis County Sheriff’s Office)
Prosecutors revealed their intent to pursue the death penalty against an Italy, Texas, mother charged with murdering three of her children and the wounding two more in a horrific stabbing at home two months ago.
Shamaiya Deyonshanaye Hall, 25, faces three charges of capital murder and two charges of aggravated assault in the Ellis County deaths of a 6-year-old boy, 5-year-old twins, Alayiah Martin and Ayden Martin, and the woundings of a 4-year-old boy and 13-month-old girl. Hall allegedly stabbed the children on March 3 as a Texas Child Protective Services caseworker attempted to remove them from the home, where the victims were living with a relative.
The case was made all the more shocking when it was revealed that Hall had a violent history and was not just the mother of twins but is a twin herself with a sister in a state mental hospital. That twin sibling, Troyshaye Hall, allegedly confessed to murdering her 7-year-old daughter Madison Petry and wounding a teen boy in an unprovoked stabbing nearly two years earlier. Madison was stabbed more than 30 times. The sibling was was found incompetent to face capital murder charges in October 2021, however, and taken to North Texas State Hospital, which provides “inpatient psychiatric services to adults, children and adolescents.”
After Shamaiya Hall’s arrest, her grandmother’s pastor said in an interview with Fox 4 that the “unbelievable and unexplainable” murders were the “end result of a mental instability that’s gone awry.”
On Wednesday, May 24, Hall was indicted by a grand jury for “intentionally and knowingly caus[ing]” the deaths of three children under the age of 10.
Prosecutors followed that up with a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in the case.
“COMES NOW, the State of Texas, by and through the undersigned County and District Attorney, and gives notice that the State intends to seek the death penalty in the above numbered cause,” the brief filing from Ellis County & District Attorney Ann Montgomery said.
Family said that Legend Chapelle was “a happy and healthy six-year-old boy” who “loved Spider-Man,” “loved his siblings,” and “loved school” when his life was “violently cut short by his own mother,” who “brutally stabbed Legend and all of his siblings.”
“Sadly, Legend and two of his siblings succumbed to their injuries, while his two remaining siblings are still battling for their lives,” said the GoFundMe campaign started on March 4.
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