A former NFL running back was sentenced on Tuesday to prison in the April 2019 death of his girlfriend’s five-year-old daughter at his Las Vegas apartment.
The sentencing came after Cierre Wood, who also played in the Canadian Football league, reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in April to second-degree murder and felony child abuse, court records show.
Wood, 33, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 10 years for the murder charge. Judge Jacqueline Bluth also ordered him to serve between 28 months and six years for the child abuse charge. He must serve the sentences consecutively.
According to a copy of the plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed the remaining felony counts of child abuse that they initially had filed against Wood. He entered what is known as an Alford plea, a formal admission of guilt in criminal court that allows a defendant to still claim innocence.
Court records show that the child’s mother, Amy Taylor, 31, also pleaded guilty earlier this year to second-degree murder and felony child abuse as part of a deal with prosecutors.
The coroner’s office in Las Vegas said the child, La’Rayah Davis, died on 9 April 2019, of blunt force injuries. According to the autopsy, she had 20 newly broken ribs, internal bleeding, a lacerated liver and bruises to her heart, diaphragm, and connective tissue at the time of her death.
Taylor said she had sat on her daughter while disciplining her. Wood said he had used exercise to discipline La’Rayah and she had fallen and hit her head while doing sit-ups. He told police that he was “trying to get her on the right path due to her being chunky.”
La’Rayah spilt time living with her mother in Las Vegas and her father, Daunan Davis, in California.
“She had so many people that she touched, and she’s only five. Her not to be alive and how much life she had, that’s the tragic thing about it,” Danaun Davis told NBC 3 News after his daughter’s death.
Wood played for the University of Notre Dame before brief NFL stints with teams including the Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills. He also played for the Montreal Alouettes in Canada.
