RALEIGH COUNTY, W.Va. (TCN) — A mother who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death has been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
According to West Virginia MetroNews, Rebakah Weikle was given two life sentences, one for each charge, on April 30. As part of her plea deal, she admitted that she was solely responsible for killing her daughter, 4-year-old Haley Weikle, in 2022.
Prosecutors say Weikle began making phone searches relating to stab wounds and torso lacerations in June 2022 after spending the previous months becoming resentful and jealous of her child.
On July 11, 2022, she told her daughter that it was bedtime and followed her into her bedroom with a knife, where she stabbed her and slit her throat as she was face-down on the bed, Oxygen True Crime reports.
Prosecutors say she muffled the sounds with a blanket or pillow. After killing the child, Weikle reportedly went to her own room and woke up her husband, Rusty Weikle, to have sex with him. Later in the night and into the early morning hours, she used her phone to search about fingerprints and throat-cutting. The following morning, after Rusty Weikle told her to check on the child, Weikle told him she was dead.
Prosecutors say Weikle had previously alleged her husband had killed their daughter to cover up sexual abuse and later admitted that that was a lie, according to MetroNews.
According to WVVA, Summers County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Lefler said, “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. I think that’s easier to digest than a mother killing her 4-year-old daughter in her bed, in her own bedroom, because she was resented and developed a jealousy of her daughter.”
In court, WOAY reports Rusty Weikle said, “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. 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.”
Rusty Weikle was sentenced to home confinement and probation after pleading guilty to child abuse and neglect charges, according to MetroNews.
Oxygen True Crime reports authorities do not believe he had anything to do with Haley Weikle’s death, but according to Lefler, “He did not take action to protect that family from her. … Now, is there a belief that he knew that one night she was gonna get a knife and cut the baby’s throat? I don’t think that, but there was red flags that something bad was coming.”
WVNS reports Weikle said he had stayed with his wife so as not to break up their family.
WOAY reports that the couple’s other two children have been adopted.
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