Jurors Begin Deliberations for Mother Accused of Killing Toddler in 2019

By Andrew Michaels - September 26, 2023
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Suspects | Victims |

Shakira Shaw’s guilt was  “at an all-time high” on Aug. 22, 2020, when she began feeling the pressure to confess to her son’s murder, a prosecutor said in her closing argument on Sept. 26 after a six-day trial.

Months earlier, on Dec. 28, 2019, Shaw was with her son, 22-month-old Kaleb Shaw, in the bedroom of her boyfriend’s apartment where they all lived on the 400 block of Aisquith Street. The prosecutor said Kaleb was “running around” and “getting on his mother’s nerves.” It was that evening when Shaw “took the covers [and] wrapped them around his head until he stopped breathing.”

Following a four-month investigation into Kaleb’s death, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) initially reported the toddler’s death was from natural causes, specifically, a failure in the heart’s electrical system causing a cardiac arrhythmia. But, the prosecutor explained, Shaw’s grief continued to weigh on her until she called the Baltimore County Police in August 2020 and asked how much time someone would serve if they admitted to killing their child.

According to the prosecution, Shaw’s demeanor and actions following Kaleb’s death showed signs of guilt way before her confession, beginning on the night of his murder. That’s when Shaw told Baltimore City Police that she went to get a shower and when she returned, she found Kaleb lying unresponsive on the bed, his lips blue and skin cold to the touch.

When first responders arrived and asked where Kaleb was, “she said it was upstairs,” the prosecutor said, noting that three to four minutes after calling the police, the 26-year-old mother stood “emotionless” on the front porch of the apartment, smoking a cigarette.

Shaw then wanted no part in Kaleb’s funeral, the prosecutor added, arriving an hour and a half late. During the trial, a witness testified Shaw was seen on Facebook Live drinking and smoking the night before.

The defendant’s guilt reached yet another level when her high school friend, who later became Kaleb’s godmother, lived with Shaw in the summer of 2020 and began asking questions about Kaleb’s death.

On Aug. 1, 2020, Shaw, her friend and her friend’s five children went on vacation to Ocean City, where the prosecutor said, “Shaw told [her friend] many, many versions of what happened to Kaleb,” even accusing her former boyfriend of her son’s murder.

Her friend began to believe Shaw was covering for someone else involved in Kaleb’s death, telling Shaw, “You’re Kaleb’s mother. It’s your responsibility to tell the truth,” and eventually contacting the OCME to further question Kaleb’s death.

The prosecutor said that later that month, Shaw told Baltimore City Police that “she wanted to tell the real truth of what happened to Kaleb.” Having had an abortion in 2016 and a miscarriage weeks before Kaleb’s death, Shaw told police she was hearing the voices of those children telling her to kill Kaleb—“a convenient excuse,” according to the prosecution.

Shaw never previously mentioned hearing these voices until her eventual confession, the prosecutor noted.

“She was scared,” the prosecutor told the jury. “She was scared to confess, but it got to the point where she couldn’t handle it anymore.”

The prosecutor reminded jurors of a medical expert’s testimony that determining asphyxia in a child is difficult given it is hard for them to fight back and signs of a struggle aren’t present.

The autopsy was later amended to homicide by asphyxia, the prosecutor explained, meaning Kaleb’s brain went without oxygen for three to five minutes before his death.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a very, very guilty mother,” the prosecutor concluded.

Defense attorney Janine Meckler, who represents Shaw alongside Stephanie Salter, then refuted the prosecution’s claims.

“Those of us who have lost a loved one to death deal with grief differently,” Meckler said. “Grief doesn’t respect time. … The grief of losing a child is a different kind of agony.”

The defense attorney told jurors that Shaw’s case was about “the loss of a life,” not murder, as she focused the jury’s attention on Kaleb’s initial “intensive and extensive” autopsy.

“Science has concluded that Kaleb died from a cardiac arrhythmia brought on by a heart defect,” she said. It took four months to complete Kaleb’s autopsy, she added, but only one day to amend the autopsy.

A combination of Shaw’s grief and mental illness led her to confess to Kaleb’s murder.

“She comes to believe she must’ve harmed her child,” Meckler said. “[But] he died suddenly and he died tragically.”

During the prosecution’s final rebuttal, the second prosecutor assigned to the case concluded by playing a jail call between the defendant and her mother during which Shaw said she had not heard voices since Kaleb’s birth.

There was no evidence of Shaw’s mental illness, the prosecutor said.

Following closing arguments before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Charles J. Peters, jurors began their deliberations Tuesday afternoon. Shaw is currently facing first and second-degree murder charges as well as first-degree child abuse resulting in the death of a child under 18 years old.