Stepfather accused of killing 4-year-old Maleah Davis pleads guilty, gets 40 years in prison
Nelson Oliveira
A Texas man accused of killing his 4-year-old stepdaughter, stuffing her body in a trash bag and dumping it on a roadside was sentenced to four decades in prison after accepting a plea deal Thursday.
Derion Vence, who was dating the victim’s mother at the time, insisted the child died from an accident even as he accepted responsibility for her death. An autopsy revealed that Maleah Davis died from “homicidal violence” in May 2019, about a month before her remains were found in Arkansas.
The 28-year-old defendant pleaded guilty to intentional injury to a child and tampering with a corpse during a court hearing in Harris County, authorities said. If the case had gone to trial, Vence would have faced up to life in prison.