A suspended Pennsylvania magistrate shot his estranged girlfriend in the head as she slept over the weekend, and police announced Thursday they have filed charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault against her.
Susquehanna County police said in an arrest affidavit that Justice of the Peace Sonya M. McKnight, 57, was shot in the hand an hour after Michael McCoy was shot in the bed of his Harrisburg-area home early Saturday morning. Tests revealed that there was some residue left behind.
McKnight was being held Friday in the Dauphin County Jail with bail set at $300,000. Court records do not list an attorney for her. A lawyer who previously represented her declined to comment, saying he was no longer representing her. A message was left on McKnight’s cell phone.
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Authorities say McCoy is currently blind in his right eye.
Police wrote that McCoy, 54, made “numerous” attempts to get McKnight to leave the house after their one-year relationship ended. On Friday, February 9, McCoy came home to find McKnight sitting on the couch in his pajamas. When he returned from her restaurant, he told her he was going to get Ms. McKnight’s girlfriend’s mother’s help in kicking her out of her house.
On February 15, 2024, suspended District Judge Sonya McKnight will be released from the Susquehanna County Police Department. (Sean Simmers/Patriot-News, via AP)
“Michael McCoy stated that he seemed to understand that it was finally over,” police said.He went to bed around 11 p.m.
Police said McCoy woke up with a “severe headache,” went blind and started screaming, when McKnight told him, “Mike, what did you do to me?” Police said the man had a gunshot wound to his right temple that exited through his left temple. McCoy told police at the scene and later at the hospital that he did not shoot himself.
When McKnight called 911 shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday, she “could not explain what happened and stated that she was asleep and heard a man screaming,” police said in the affidavit. .
Investigators found doorbell video from a neighboring residence that contradicted McKnight’s claim that she did not leave her home the night of the shooting. McCoy suspected she had checked on him at her tavern. Detectives said in the affidavit that the gun was registered to McKnight and that both men said no one else was in the home at the time of the shooting.
The attempted murder case was transferred from the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office to a neighboring prosecutor, Cumberland County District Attorney Sean McCormack, due to a conflict of interest. A message was left with McCormack seeking comment.
McKnight, an elected Dauphin County judge since 2016, was suspended without pay in mid-November by the Judicial Discipline Court, which handles allegations of misconduct against judges. The Commission on Judicial Conduct, which investigates and prosecutes cases of misconduct against judges in Pennsylvania, said in a September filing that McKnight’s conduct centered on a 2020 traffic stop involving her son. He claimed he violated his judicial probation in a past misconduct case. She was acquitted of her criminal charges in that case.
The Commission on Judicial Conduct alleges she granted excessive time off to court staff amid pending misconduct allegations. She directed her aides to ignore a woman’s civil complaint alleging that McKnight owed her a $2,100 loan. and used her Facebook profile, which included a photo of her in legal dress, to promote sales of consumer products.
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Pennlive.com reported that McKnight was not charged with fatally shooting her estranged husband in 2019 after he invited her to his home to help move furniture. State prosecutors did not charge her, citing self-defense, PennLive said.
