A Pennsylvania judge allegedly shot his ex-girlfriend in the head while she slept before trying to convince her that she committed suicide as she lay blind in one eye.
Magistrate District Judge Sonya M. McKnight, 57, was charged Thursday with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated assault for fatally shooting Michael McCoy at his Harrisburg-area home on Feb. 9. Ta. According to court records.
Susquehanna County police said in an arrest affidavit that McCoy, 54, tried “numerous times” to end their year-long relationship with McKnight, before allegedly attempting to kill her. He wrote that he tried to kick him out of the house.
When McCoy returned home from the pub, he found McKnight lounging on the couch in his pajamas and told him he needed to leave again and that he would seek his mother’s help to get him out of the house if necessary. . She is said to have agreed to her going.
“Michael McCoy stated that he seemed to understand that it was finally over,” police said.
An agreement appeared to be reached between the two, but that Friday, McCoy went to bed around 11 p.m.
However, some time later he woke up with a “severe headache” and lost his vision.
He panicked and screamed in pain and confusion. That alerted McKnight, who stormed out into his bedroom.
“Mike, what did you do to yourself?” McKnight asked her estranged boyfriend as she entered the room, police said.
McKnight called 911 shortly before 1 a.m. that Saturday to report McCoy’s injuries.
Police said that during the call, she “could not explain what happened and stated that she was asleep and heard a man screaming.”
Paramedics rushed McCoy to the hospital and found him with a gunshot wound to his right temple, protruding through his left temple.
Authorities said McCoy’s right eye was so damaged that he lost sight.
A gun registered to McKnight was found at the scene and gunshot residue was found on her hands just an hour after the shooting, according to the affidavit.
“I didn’t shoot,” McCoy repeatedly told police at the scene while in the hospital.
McCoy and McKnight said no one else was in the home during the shooting.
McKnight also told investigators that she did not leave her home the night of the shooting, but that claim was quickly discredited after a neighbor’s doorbell video showed her leaving. It turned out to be wrong.
McCoy told police he believed she followed him to the pub where he was Friday night.
McKnight has since been suspended from his job as an elected judge in Dauphin County, a position he had held since 2016.
She was being held in the Dauphin County Jail as of Friday, with bail set at $300,000.
Because of the conflict of interest, her case will be transferred from Dauphin County to neighboring Cumberland County, where it will be prosecuted by District Attorney Sean McCormack.
In 2019, McKnight shot her estranged husband, Enoch McKnight, in the groin after asking him to come to her home to help move furniture (Pennlive.com). report.
The couple married in 2014 but filed for divorce two years later. However, at the time of the incident, the divorce was still in the middle of a domestic dispute, so it was judged to be self-defense.
McKnight faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of attempted first-degree murder for allegedly causing bodily harm to McCoy. Pennsylvania law.
with post wire
