Jazlyn Morgan finds it hard to leave her one-year-old twins behind for job, school, or even a quick trip to the grocery store.
When the boys were barely 14 days old, Morgan and three other acquaintances abducted them from a hotel in Livonia, leaving her and her family in a state of panic for 12 hours as they tried to determine whether the babies were okay.
She stated that her boys are now almost 15 months old. They are doing well and are walking. On Tuesday, Wayne Circuit Court sentenced the lady who entered a guilty plea to kidnapping them to seven to twenty years in jail.
On October 4, Shantell Jones entered a guilty plea to a single charge of kidnapping. Three counts of larceny in a building, two counts of unlawful imprisonment, one count of conspiracy to conduct abduction, and a second offense of kidnapping were all dropped.
Morgan stated in her victim impact statement on Tuesday that losing her sons is “every mother’s worst nightmare.” She stated that because the effects of the kidnapping are still being felt in her family, she wanted Jones to receive a sentence that was longer than seven to twenty years.
“Everybody went through just a nightmare in that 12 hours,” Morgan stated. “It may not seem like a lot to you, but it was a lot to me. You opened a door of friendship, you took me at my most lowest moment in life. You used me, you betrayed me, you set me up.”
Morgan testified at the preliminary examination last year, Jones became friends with Morgan during her pregnancy to give assistance, and Morgan dropped off a gift card for her at the Livonia hotel where she was staying with the newborns.
Jones and four other people, including Curtis Slay, Davion Sherman Chandler, and a 16-year-old female, are accused of stealing the babies, their car seats, and Morgan’s phone and tablet from the hotel room after he left the room for a moment to fetch a pop from a vending machine downstairs.
In May, Slay and Sherman Chandler were found guilty of wrongful imprisonment and given sentences ranging from three to fifteen years in jail. The juvenile case against the 16-year-old girl is still underway.
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Jones has pleaded guilty and taken responsibility, according to Jones’ lawyer, Arni Chambers.
“I just want to say I apologize for my actions and I hope you follow what’s already on paper,” Jones said to Judge Anne Marie McCarthy of Wayne County Circuit Court before to her sentencing.
According to McCarthy, Jones’ behavior was “quite disturbing,” and it was obvious that she was the quartet’s leader.
