A Detroit woman was sentenced to a minimum of 23 years in prison on Monday for murdering another woman with a slow-cooker, according to The Associated Press.
The defendant — 51-year-old Tewana Sullivan — supposedly had a .41 blood-alcohol level and killed her friend, 66-year-old Cheryl Livy, because of a contentious disagreement over the presidential election.
Last month, Sullivan — who also charged with battery in Florida five years ago — pleaded guilty but mentally ill to second degree murder, expecting to be admitted into a psychiatric hospital as opposed to prison.
“I took this plea thinking that I was going to be going to a place where I could get help,” ClickOnDetroit reported Sullivan said at her sentencing Monday, “I didn’t think I was going to be going to jail.”
Last month, CBS Detroit reported that Sullivan was in agreement with prosecutors that this plea would result in a 23 to 50 year prison sentence and that the mental illness claim would not in any way affect the prison term, but would require prison officials to evaluate and treat her.
Sullivan’s attorney, John McWilliams, previously stated that the fight ending with slow-cooker weaponry was instigated by a presidential debate and “whatever the controversy is between Democrats and Republicans,” but refused to elaborate as to which woman was on each side of the debate.
McWilliams also has claimed that they’ll be appealing the court’s decision because Sullivan “didn’t take her medication like [she] was supposed to” and that triggered her violent outburst.
Since her mother’s gruesome murder, the victim’s daughter Eva Marie Livy has been campaigning for justice for her family.
“I am so angry. I don’t understand this, just because she was so drunk she cant remember anything doesn’t make her not liable for what she does when she is drunk,” Livy wrote on her community Facebook page, Justice For Cheryl Livy, “My Mother Deserves JUSTICE.”