A murderer unknowingly chose his own prison sentence after pleading innocent to the killing of his own daughter.
Christopher McNabb, from Covington, Georgia, was found guilty of killing his 15-day-old daughter Caliyah in 2019.
The murderer ended up unknowingly setting himself up to receive the "maximum sentence" after the judge let him decide his own sentence during his hearing.
The jury heard how McNabb and his girlfriend Cortney Marie Bell had been under the influence of crystal meth when he beat the newborn to death in October 2017.
The pair had initially claimed that their baby girl had been abducted from the trailer park where they were living while they slept, and said that they had been frantically searching for her.
However, Caliyah's body was tragically found inside a Nike backpack in a wooded area close to the filthy home in which they lived.
The court heard that as well as living in squalid conditions, the couple's relationship was also violent and plagued by drug abuse.
While McNabb admitted to being physically abusive to Bell, he denied responsibility for the two-week-old baby's death.
Bell said in her interrogation, as reported by Fox 5 Atlanta: "I am guilty because I did drugs, but I ain’t never seen this comin’, that’s my baby. I went to put her to sleep and I woke up and she was gone."
Caliyah's autopsy determined that she had died from blunt force trauma to the head, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports Newton Coroner Tommy Davis saying.
Despite maintaining their innocence throughout the trial, both McNabb and Bell were found guilty of Caliyah's death.
McNabb was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, murder in the second degree, aggravated battery, cruelty to children in the first degree, cruelty to children in the second degree, and concealing the death of another, while Bell was found guilty of second-degree murder, second-degree child cruelty, and contributing to the dependency of a minor.
Bell was handed a 30-year sentence, with 15 years to be served in prison, though the Georgia Court of Appeals later reversed the murder and cruelty convictions in 2023, according to The Covington News.
McNabb told the judge at his own sentencing hearing: "I'm innocent, I didn't do it. I've maintained that the whole time.
"I just don't understand how you find somebody guilty of doing something to a 15-day-old baby, because there was no evidence whatsoever that proved anything about me putting my hands on those kids.
"I've never done it, I never would. I don't believe in it. I was beat as a child and I don't agree with it at all. I would never do it. I would never do this. That's all I got to say. I'm innocent."
Upon his protestation, the judge then told McNabb he had "one simple question" to ask him: "You claim you're innocent. So, you tell me what sentence the man or woman that you claim did this should receive?"
McNabb then responded: "If you ever find out who did it, they deserve to be under the jail," to which the judge then asked: "Okay... so they ought to get the maximum sentence?"
"Most definitely," McNabb responded, to which the judge then told him: "On the crime of malice murder, I sentence you to life in confinement without parole."
District Attorney Layla Zon accused McNabb of crying "fake tears" in court, and said that his comments about how much he loved his children were "a joke".
She said of Caliyah: "That child didn't do anything but need love, and her daddy killed her. She was a gift to Cortney Bell and Christopher McNabb.
"That child was doomed the moment they left that hospital. They took pure innocence and brought that child into a life of hell."