A 38-year-old woman accused of stabbing another woman to death in the parking lot of a bank in 2018 was found not guilty Friday in a second trial after she successfully appealed a 50-year prison sentence handed down in 2020.
Sheyanah N. Lee of Peoria was found guilty on first-degree murder charges in February 2020 for stabbing Markesha T. Jeffries to death on Nov. 27, 2018, in the parking lot of Associated Bank in the 4600 block of North Brandywine Drive.
She was sentenced to 50 years in prison that July but appealed the verdict and the sentence, saying that her initial counsel was ineffective due to their inability to object to the admission of a police officer’s body camera footage.
The 3rd District Appellate Court ruled in January 2023 that not only was Lee provided insufficient counsel, but that the sentenced handed down was excessive, remanding the case back to Peoria County for retrial. After a five-day trial that began Dec. 15, a jury took just over two-and-a-half hours to find Lee not guilty.
Court records from the time indicate that Jeffries’ brother and Lee’s girlfriend were involved in mediation over a custody dispute when Jeffries and Lee got into an argument in the parking lot. Jeffries was accused of pepper-spraying Lee, her father and her girlfriend, which led to Lee stabbing Jeffries when she felt like someone was grabbing her, according to court records.
Jeffries was transported to OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center, where she succumbed to her injuries. Lee was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
According to the Third Circuit, during the original trial, prosecutors presented a two-minute body camera video taken from a Peoria police officer who responded to the scene, showing Jeffries struggling to maintain consciousness. No one addressed the wound in spite of the pleas of Jeffries’ brother and Lee’s girlfriend.
The appellate court said that the body camera footage didn’t show anything that proved Lee committed first-degree murder, with the remainder of the footage already reflecting evidence presented earlier in the trial. Prosecutors had already presented cellphone video and photographs of the incident to the jury and there was no strategic reason for counsel not to object to the body camera footage being entered into evidence.
In addition, they noted that the video was shocking enough that the admission into evidence would have been enough to tip the scales in favor of prosecution. The court ruled that counsel did not provide Lee with effective counsel and remanded the case back to Peoria County for re-trial.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Peoria woman found not guilty of 2018 fatal stabbing in retrial
Reporting by Zach Roth, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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