Left: Ricky Beasley (North Las Vegas Police Department). Center: Zaela Walker (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children/NLVPD). Right: Lakeia Walker (NLVPD).
A Nevada mother and father who confessed to killing their 3-year-old daughter and keeping it secret, with prosecutors saying they hid her body somewhere — never to be found — have learned their fates.
Las Vegas parents Ricky Beasley, 34, and Lakeia Walker, 35, were both sentenced last week in Clark County nearly a decade after their daughter, Zaela Walker, was reported missing in 2018. Prosecutors said the little girl was thrown against a wall before her death because she wet her pants.
Police believed the girl ultimately died from a trauma or a health-related injury caused by her parents, according to local ABC affiliate KTNV.
"There is no doubt that this child suffered for hours without medical treatment," Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo told the court Thursday at Beasley and Walker's sentencing.
Beasley and Walker both pleaded guilty in May to charges of second-degree murder and accessory to commit murder, respectively, in connection with Zaela's death. Beasley was sentenced Thursday to serve between 10 and 25 years in prison, while Walker received probation. Beasley was given credit for more than seven and a half years he's already spent in jail. Walker was given a suspended sentence of two to five years, which will be carried out if she violates the terms of her probation, which include having no contact with Beasley.
"These two sociopaths deserve the ultimate possible punishment," DiGiacomo said. "I just didn't have that evidence. I had evidence that certainly Mr. Beasley was guilty of murder and certainly Ms. Walker was guilty of accessory after the fact, but their conduct suggests that they should do every possible day in prison."
When Zaela disappeared in 2018, Beasley and Walker insisted for months that she was in the care of relatives before a witness — Beasley's own mother — came forward and told police she last saw Zaela with Beasley, who became enraged at the youngster for wetting herself.
The grandmother told investigators she heard a loud thud and then saw Beasley clutching Zaela in his arms as she was crying. Police say Beasley threw the little girl against a wall after getting upset at her and then searched "how to stop seizures in young children" on Google, per KTNV.
Interviews with Lakeia indicated that the child was not alive, including a failed lie detector test and statements she provided to investigators in which she said "the trunk of a vehicle reeked, like rotten meat," while it was in Beasley's possession. Prosecutors said Walker told cops that Beasley got her to help him clean the trunk out after he "took" Zaela from her for seven days and held her for ransom, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
"She and Ricky cleaned the trunk by vacuuming and using lemon-scented ammonia to rid the trunk of the stench," court documents obtained by KTNV said.
A police detective told a grand jury in 2019 that Walker was caught on jail phone calls with Beasley, who was arrested first, telling him, "You always say no body, no crime."
"I don't know what happened to the poor child, but I will say this: I believe that both of you know, and I think that is going to be one of the harshest things that's ever going to happen to either one of you, because I couldn't fathom what it would be like to have to live with that for the rest of my life," Clark County District Chief Judge Tierra Jones told Beasley and Walker after sentencing them, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Beasley told the court that he takes "full responsibility" for what happened to his daughter and "for loving Zae so much that her absence echoes louder than every untrue thing that's been said about me." His lawyer described the youngster's death as a "horrible mistake that snowballed."