A magistrate court judge in Pennsylvania has been charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault after she allegedly shot her boyfriend in the head while he was sleeping.
Sonya M. McKnight allegedly shot the victim in his home in Susquehanna Township on February 10, according to the Cumberland county District Attorney’s Office. The bullet traveled behind the victim’s eyes and left him blind in one eye.
The incident took place in Dauphin County, where McKnight serves as a magisterial district judge, but prosecutors there asked Cumberland County District Attorney Seán M. McCormack to handle the case.
According to court documents obtained by WHP, McKnight had been dating 54-year-old Michael McCoy for about a year. McKnight had moved into his home, but on February 4, McCoy told her he was ending the relatioonship. McKnight reportedly refused to leave, and McCoy reportedly removed his key from her key ring.
McCoy said that on February 9, he went out to dinner and thought that McKnight was following him. Police said they obtained evidence that confirmed his suspicions.
When he arrived home that night, however, McKnight was sleeping on his counch. She asked to talk with him, but he said they could talk tomorrow. An hour or so later, he went to sleep.
He woke up later with “massive head pain,” unable to see. HE said he started to scream and heard McKnight say, “Mike, what did you do to yourself?”
She kept asking him what he did, while he asked her to help him to the bathroom and to call an ambulance. She used his phone, after asking for his passcode, and told dispatchers that her boyfriend couldn’t see and needed an ambulance.
She told dispatchers she didn’t know what happened, that she awakened and heard him screaming.
When police arrived just before 1 a.m., they found McCoy with a gunshot wound near his right eye. Police told him he’d been shot, and he said, “I did not shoot myself.”
The court documents say the investigation showed that McCoy had been shot from about a foot away and that McKnight tested positive for gunshot residue on her hands after the incident. The gun was registered to McKnight.
The Court of Judicial Discipline suspended McKnight without pay last year over several allegations of misconduct, according to the Associated Press.
She was also involved in a shooting incident with her estranged husband in 2019, but prosecutors cited self-defense and did not charge her.
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[Featured image: Sonya McKnight/Dauphin County Prison]
