PITTSBURGH — The man charged with squeezing a toddler to death learned his fate today.
Allegheny County Judge Jill Rangos gave Kyrell Morgan the maximum sentence, which means he could spend the next 40 years in prison for squeezing his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter to death.
During his sentencing hearing, prosecutors played a FaceTime call from the day Morgan was found guilty during his trial, where he was shown laughing, smiling, and joking about the verdict.
At one point during the call, he appeared so unphased by the verdict, that he asked to look at the person on the other line’s shoes.
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Also during that call, Morgan told the person on the other end to “find” Brielle’s mom.
“I told myself that she can go right up there with her daughter. She can go right up there with her daughter where she belongs,” Morgan said on the call.
In 2021, Morgan squeezed the little girl so hard that her internal injuries killed her.
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During the trial, a doctor testified that Brielle died a slow and painful death.
Morgan’s defense attorney, Blaine Jones, told Channel 11 that he wasn’t shocked by today’s verdict, or the FaceTime call.
“I looked at it as a young man, right after the verdict, and that was his defense mechanism. I think he was trying to internalize what just happened,” Jones said.
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While Judge Rangos was issuing her sentence, she told Morgan that she took the FaceTime call into consideration and then gave him the maximum.
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