OKTIBBEHA COUNTY – An Oktibbeha County woman convicted in 2011 of killing her husband on a hunting trip has exhausted her appeal options after the Mississippi Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear her case.
Verina Childs, 53, was arrested in November 2009, just days after her husband, Douglas Marion Childs, then 32, was found dead from a single gunshot wound. Childs and her husband were on a hunting trip together near the Choctaw County line when other hunters in the area heard a gunshot.
During Childs’ trial, ballistic and forensic tests linked her to the murder scene and the rifle used to kill her husband. Additionally, when interviewed by police, Childs’ explanation of the incident conflicted with the testimony of other hunters who heard the gunshot.
Childs was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Childs’ conviction was upheld on direct appeal in 2013 despite her claims of tampered evidence and a failure by the state to prove “deliberate-design” murder. In February 2018, Childs’ conviction was overturned in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court after her attorney argued she was entitled to a new trial because in the first, instructions given to the jury did not list Oktibbeha County as the venue in which the crime took place.
Childs filed for post-conviction relief with the Mississippi Supreme Court, which defendants can file to argue that an aspect of their trial was unfair. She filed for relief on the grounds of newly discovered evidence and ineffective assistance of trial counsel, among other issues. The application did not, however, raise the issue of venue.
It wasn’t until after the Supreme Court granted her post-conviction relief that Childs amended her application to claim the jury instructions in her initial trial should have included the venue. The Mississippi Court of Appeals reinstated the conviction in 2020 after the decision was appealed by the District Attorney’s Office for the 16th Circuit. The court ruled Childs could not raise the venue claim for the first time in post-conviction proceedings without first receiving permission from the state Supreme Court.
Childs’ most recent petition asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling. But with the court’s denial of that petition, the appellate ruling stands and Childs’ sentence remains in place.
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