The stepmother from Indiana has been found guilty of murder, strangulation, neglect of a dependent resulting in death and domestic battery resulting in death to a person under 14. The jury will reconvene to consider whether she should be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Authorities found the body of the 10-year-old girl in a shed in September 2019. She had last been seen that Aug. 31. Days later, Amanda Carmack admitted to strangling the girl to death in a shed behind the family’s home. The body was found stashed in plastic trash bags in the shed.
Amanda tried to unsuccessfully strangle Skylea with her bare hands before wrapping a pair of jeans around her neck to take her life. Amanda and Skylea were working in the backyard when she realized the girl had taken a charm bracelet from one of the other children in the home.
Six other children lived in the home, but Skylea was the only one to whom Amanda had no blood relation. Three of those children are hers; the other three were the kids of her brother. Skylea was the biological daughter of Amanda’s husband. Amanda began slapping the 10-year-old girl before she started choking her. The other siblings said that Amanda physically abused them, forcing them to face a wall for hours and hit them with a pink belt.
