Plymouth toddler's beating death reverberates a year later
Toddler's beating death reverberates a year later
Virginia Black South Bend Tribune
PLYMOUTH — In the 12 months since 2-year-old Serenity Wilson died, so much has changed.
• Shane Weedling, the 24-year-old who just last week pleaded guilty to murdering Serenity in a hotel room because she wasn't potty-trained, says he has found God.
• The girl's mother, 25-year-old Krysti Lavanway, is sitting in the Indiana Women's Prison on a 35-year sentence because she chose her drug-addicted boyfriend, Weedling, over the little girl she found lifeless and bloodied.
• Deb Blacklaw is caring for Serenity's older sister while she struggles with sleepless nights and little money to pay bills.
• Cody Wilson, Deb's son and Serenity's father, is working to climb out from under debt he accumulated after a job loss, so that he can bring home his other daughter. Meanwhile, he's organized a vigil for tonight, the day after the one-year anniversary of his daughter's death.
"I don't want people to forget this happened," he said last week. "I want people to see the wound's still fresh and it's not over."
While Lavanway was at work the morning of Sept. 18 last year, Weedling angrily texted her that Serenity had wet the bed and needed to live elsewhere. Blacklaw, who was raising both Serenity and her sister, had allowed Lavanway to take Serenity to stay with her a couple of weeks earlier.
Weedling told Lavanway that he had already beaten the girl and that if she did not return home soon, he would beat her some more.
The mother walked to the hotel room after her shift ended. She found Serenity unconscious and with her nose and other parts of her face bloody. She waited two hours before persuading another resident to take her and the girl to a hospital, where she lied more than once about Weedling's involvement. Police would later find a broken hairbrush and traces of Serenity's blood around the room.
Plymouth hospital workers sent the toddler by helicopter to a Fort Wayne hospital, where she died the next day.
Weedling's plea agreement, signed last week but first offered to him in January, calls for him to plead guilty to murder while counts of neglect of a dependent and marijuana possession are dropped. Prosecutor Nelson Chipman said he will push for 65 years at Weedling's Oct. 6 sentencing.
Court documents say the judge will recommend Weedling be housed in "long term protective custody" in New Castle Correctional Facility. Other records indicate Weedling and his family were threatened in the past year.
'Genuine, newfound faith in God'
Letters in Weedling's court file paint a picture of a man who has realized the error of his ways and wants to turn his life around.
"About a month after I was arrested, I came to Christ and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior," Weedling wrote in a letter in March. "I realized that the reason I've been such a screw up in life is because I thought I could control my life and everything would be OK.
"That only led to many drugs, the loss of my wife, and eventually I became so dependent on drugs that I got very messed up on Xanax one day which resulted in what I'm doing time for now," he continued. By realizing that God would forgive him, he wrote, he could forgive himself and has found peace.
"I longed so much for drugs and nicotine," Weedling wrote. "... Now my only craving and addiction is Jesus and living for him."
At least one other person believes Weedling's account of his "newfound, genuine faith in God."
"He has learned that his extremely self-centered lifestyle, rife with foolish decisions and choices on a daily basis, got him into the position that resulted in the child's tragic loss of life," Paul Spasic, a counselor at Plymouth's New Song Community Church, wrote in an Aug. 31 letter that described his encounters with Weedling before and, more frequently, after his arrest. "I have worked carefully with him to discern genuine changes in his thinking, attitudes, and life goals."
'Justice is key'
No doubt, skeptics will wonder whether Weedling's turnaround is sincere or merely an attempt to sway Judge Robert Bowen, who noted in court records the letters were inappropriate communications and would be disregarded.
Wilson and Blacklaw may be able to forgive Weedling — Blacklaw says she already has — but forgetting is another matter.
"This isn't doing me any good, being angry like this," she says.
The process has been tough on Blacklaw, who says she doesn't understand a system in which officials have displayed a just-the-bare-facts attitude in discussing the murder victim.
"Don't you want to know what her favorite food was, the color of her eyes?" she says she asked a prosecutor. "I want them to remember."
To remember the redheaded girl with a big smile. Who loved pink. Who pretended to talk on her toy phone. Who repeated the same knock-knock joke. Who needed to be held tight at night to fall asleep.
Now, with only about $700 a month of Social Security money with which to support herself and Serenity's 6-year-old sister, she worries what the future holds.
Blacklaw has had her own recent legal troubles and is on probation. Soon after Serenity's death, she was arrested on a theft charge that's still pending. Blacklaw says she had gone to a store for drugs to treat the little girl's infection. The girl, who was running a fever, was nauseated, and in the chaos, Blacklaw forgot she had not paid for the gallon of milk she was carrying until a police officer knocked on her door later.
"If you've done something wrong, you've got to own it," she says of both her crime and Weedling's.
"I think once this guy is sentenced and gone, we'll be OK," Blacklaw says. "I want that man to look me in the eye and stand up and say he's sorry."
For his part, Wilson knows his mother is depressed but echoes her hope that once the case is over, true healing can begin.
"Justice," he says, "is key, you know."
Virginia Black: 574-235-6321
vblack@sbtinfo.com
Tonight's remembrance
A vigil at 6 p.m. will be at Serenity Wilson's grave in the new part of Oak Hill Cemetery, 1300 Chester St. in Plymouth.