The woman convicted of torturing and starving her 10-year-old stepdaughter to death was sentenced to death on Tuesday in a Georgia courtroom.
The Gwinnett Daily Post reports that Tiffany Moss, convicted of killing Emani Moss, was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
The jury delivered the sentence one day after Moss, 36, was found guilty of all counts against her related to the brutal killing, including felony murder, concealing the death of another, and first-degree cruelty to children. According to the Daily Beast, Moss represented herself at the murder trial, thought the Gwinnett Daily Post notes that the defendant did not present any defense.
A Gwinnett County jury sentenced #TiffanyMoss to death for starving 10-year-old Emani Moss and then trying to burn the girl’s emaciated body in a trash can: https://t.co/HRpJGXdEKW pic.twitter.com/osssABqY3W
— AJC (@ajc) April 30, 2019
Prosecutors reportedly detailed the abuse against Emani, including allegations that Moss repeatedly beat her with a leather belt, and deprived her of food over an extended period of time, eventually starving her to death.
“Emani was nothing (to Moss); she was a nuisance, she was ugly, she was nothing,” Chief Assistant District Attorney Lisa Jones reportedly said in court on Monday.
“She was a pain, she was disposable, she was trash.”
Emani’s father Eman Moss previously pleaded guilty to murder charges and testified against Tiffany. Days before Emani died in 2013, her father found her in a bathtub, seemingly unresponsive, appearing to seize and with her eyes rolling from side to side. Instead of getting help, Eman admitted in court that he put her on a mattress and continued with his usual routine, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Days later, after Tiffany reportedly called him at work to say that Emani had died, he moved his daughter’s body to a computer room in the home. The couple later stuffed the body in a trash can — causing bones to crack, Eman reportedly testified — and tried to burn the remains, but changed course after Eman reportedly determined the flames would not reduce the remains to ash. Soon after, Eman reportedly called 911 and confessed, while Tiffany left their home with the couple’s two surviving children.
Despite Eman’s role in the killing, prosecutors were reportedly able to convince at a jury that Tiffany Moss was the “mastermind” behind the murder.
“Do you really think he was the brains of the outfit? No, he wasn’t,” Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter told the jury, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
“He was seduced and enamored and under the influence of this defendant to the extent to which he was willing to turn his eyes away from his own child, and he was willing to go along with this horrendous scheme to dispose of that baby.”
Eman Moss is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.
