Inset: Rebakah Weikle (WVDCR). Background: The area in West Virginia where Weikle killed her 4-year-old daughter (Google Maps).
A 33-year-old woman in West Virginia will likely spend the rest of her life behind bars for killing her 4-year-old daughter, stabbing and slitting the girl's throat because she was jealous of the attention the child was getting from her husband.
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Michael Froble on Thursday ordered Rebakah Weikle to serve two terms of 15 years to life in a state correctional facility after she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death in the 2022 slaying of her daughter Haley. The sentences will run consecutively, meaning Weikle must serve at least 30 years before she is eligible for parole.
Prosecutors said the killing stemmed from an escalating and deeply disturbing motive — maternal envy, according to a report from Oak Hill, West Virginia, CBS affiliate WOAY.
"Young Haley laid down, and at some point, Rebakah made the decision to cut her throat," Summers County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Lefler said in court, describing how the child struggled as her mother inflicted multiple wounds. "She was then able to make the fatal laceration across Haley's throat and took her life."
Authorities said Weikle carried out the horrific attack inside the family's home in the Forest Hill area in July 2022 after becoming jealous of the attention her husband paid to the child. Investigators later determined she had researched how to kill the child prior to the murder.
"She stated that she had this great resentment towards her daughter for whatever reason, and decided to take her life," Lefler said, according to WOAY. "It almost seems impossible to accept."
Prosecutors said that after the killing, Weikle left her daughter's body in her bed overnight, letting her husband find the mutilated body the following morning, WV MetroNews reported.
Weikle reportedly attempted to conceal the crime by hiding the knife and the clothes she had been wearing before going to bed, leaving the child's body in the home overnight.
When her husband rushed to the bedroom and discovered the scene, he instructed Weikle to call 911. She reportedly entered the numbers but did not place the call, prompting him to take the phone and contact emergency services himself.
In the yearslong investigation that followed, Weikle repeatedly tried to shift blame onto her husband, falsely claiming he killed the child to cover up alleged sexual abuse. Prosecutors said those allegations were untrue, and, as part of her plea, she ultimately admitted they were fabricated.
"She made allegations that I think makes it easier to believe that someone would kill their daughter probably because there was something more sinister going on," Lefler said, per Bluefield, West Virginia, NBC affiliate WVVA. "I think that's easier to digest than a mother killing her four-year-old daughter in her bed, in her own bedroom, because she resented and developed a jealousy of her daughter."
Lefler also said digital evidence, including cellphone data and internet searches, helped investigators piece together what occurred inside the home.
"We were able to piece together a better picture of what occurred including her cellphone activity and her searches which established that she was one that committed this act," he said.
The child's father also faced charges in the case, pleading guilty to child abuse and neglect and receiving a sentence of home confinement and probation. Prosecutors said he was not involved in the killing but had failed to address warning signs leading up to the crime.
"I want everybody to know how evil the person that she is and what all she has done. She killed a 4-year-old baby, my baby," the father said in court. "She was jealous that I was paying attention to her, doing what I was supposed to do, watching out for her. I was trying to keep her safe."
Officials said the case required coordination among multiple law enforcement agencies across the region and took years to fully unravel as investigators worked to overcome conflicting claims about what happened inside the home.
Weikle is expected to remain incarcerated for decades, with the court acknowledging she is likely to die in prison, WOAY reported.
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