Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman sentenced Monica Delk, 35, to three years in prison for stabbing her boyfriend to death.
Judge Steelman ordered split confinement, meaning Ms. Delk will be on probation after she serves 11 months and 29 days in the workhouse. The probation is for 10 years, during which she must seek psychiatric treatment.
Because she has already served 18 months at Silverdale, she does not have to return to the workhouse and gets to go home.
Ms. Delk stabbed her boyfriend, Charles Brown IV, 27, in the heart with a knife on Jan. 5, 2014 in her apartment on Grove Street.
On the day of the killing, Ms. Delk and Brown were reportedly in a violent fight. Because Ms. Delk said she feared for her and her two young sons’ lives, she stabbed Brown.
But she said she did not mean to kill him.
She was arrested for second-degree murder and later pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
While she was incarcerated at Silverdale, Dr. Robert Brown Jr., who testified as an expert psychologist, psychoanalyzed her and discovered the “inability for her to have normal judgment.”
Since Ms. Delk was born premature, she suffered many neurological complications not treatable by medication.
Dr. Brown diagnosed Ms. Delk with acute distress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. He recounted a dream she had where she saw Brown singing in the choir. Brown was happy again and so was she.
She never wanted to commit harm to Brown; she never wanted him to die, Dr. Brown said.
On cross-examination, Prosecutor David Schmidt asked Dr. Brown that since the defendant’s brain deficits are not treatable, couldn’t she kill again if things did not go “quite right.”
“There is risk,” Dr. Brown said. “But, ethically, the last thing she ever wants to do is what she did to Brown…that’s why she has post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Judge Steelman said he believed Ms. Delk’s testimony. He said he thought she would have avoided killing Brown had she had the chance to “rewind.”
However, the judge did not grant Ms. Delk her diversion because he thought it necessary to keep the felony charge on her record. He said the public had the right to know what she was capable of.
At the end of the hearing, Ms. Delk’s attorney John McDougal said Ms. Delk gets to go back to her family and her job and start to rebuild her life.
If she does not comply with her probation, however, she will have to return to prison to finish out the rest of her three-year sentence.
Lashanda Smith, former sister-in-law of Brown, has had custody of Brown's 10-year-old daughter since she was 1 1/2 years old. Ms. Smith would bring Brown's daughter to Chattanooga from Texas at least three times a year. She said Brown's relationship with daughter had its struggles but that "Charlie was a decent father."
She said his daughter was very distraught when he died and is in counseling. The daughter wrote a letter to Ms. Delk saying what she did was very wrong, but that she forgave her because "God has the final say."
Brown's younger sister said her brother was silly and her best friend. They would pray together and Brown would sing gospel songs to her. "The relationship that we had as brother and sister was an irreplaceable relationship," she said. When she heard the news her brother had been murdered, she was in shock and broke down. Her husband told her to calm down, but she said, "I can't calm down because my brother's dead." She cried as she testified, "It took a major effect on us."
Mary Kilgore, aunt of Ms. Delk, said Ms. Delk had problems at birth and doctors said she would not live to be beyond five years of age. She said Ms. Delk was a good child who went to church every Sunday and is still going to church. Currently, Ms. Delk lives with Ms. Kilgore at her home in East Tennessee. Ms. Delk's sons now live with her ex-husband. The aunt never met Brown, but one night one of the boys called the aunt's phone to let her hear a fight between Brown and Ms. Delk.
Ms. Delk was in the Army Reserves for eight years. "She's a good person...she loves everybody and she is a good person," Ms. Kilgore said. She currently has a job at Bojangles. Ms. Kilgore said she and Ms. Delk are very close, but Ms. Delk hasn't spoken to her aunt about the incident since it happened.
Dr. Steven Cogswell of the medical examiner's office said it is possible that the victim could have gotten to surgery and been saved had he had immediate help. But he said it did not take him long to die from internal bleeding after being stabbed in the heart.
He said he also had a stab wound in the back, plus another superficial stab wound. He also had a number of abrasions and contusions around his face and neck as if he had been in a struggle.
Dr. Cogswell said the victim also had chemical burns on his back that could have been caused by lying on his back in a fabric that was soaked with cleaning agents. Police said Ms. Delk cleaned up the crime scene.
Doris Hart, grandmother of Brown, said she raised him, while noting his mother died when he was seven and his father was always in jail. She said he was a happy child, but a slow learner who did not finish Brainerd High School.
She said he continued to live with her until he was 27. She said she had urged him to go out on his own, and he had been living with Ms. Delk and at a hotel for a few months prior to his death. He was working at a chicken processing plant before losing that job.
It was testified that Ms. Delk called police earlier to complain about Brown, who was the father of a boy and a girl.
Ms. Hart said Brown called her every night, including the night before his death. She said he told her, "I need help."
Ms. Hart said she thinks about "him lying there bleeding, and she wouldn't help him." That testimony caused two women in the courtroom to begin crying. The judge took a recess in the case and the women left the courtroom.