Mother Gets Life in Stabbing Deaths of 4 Children

       Feb. 8, 2022 – The mother of four young children who she stabbed to death in 2016 in their southeast Shelby County apartment was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

      In a non-jury trial in December, Criminal Court Judge James Lammey Jr. found that Shanynthia Gardner, 34, could appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions when she stabbed to death four of her children whose ages ranged from four years to five months. Her 7-year-old son escaped from their apartment and ran to neighbors for help.

      Gardner’s attorneys argued that she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. State prosecutors agreed that she has a mental disease, but that she understood what she was doing was wrong.

    “It was important for us to get justice for Martin Gardner and his four beautiful children - Tallen, Sya, Sahvi, and Yahzi,” said Chief Prosecutor Eric Christensen of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit. “We returned a photo album to him that was taken into evidence. He was very emotional and said that's all he had left, but that he's glad she can't hurt any more children.”

      The stabbings occurred around noon on July 1, 2016, at the family’s apartment near hacks Cross Road and East Shelby Drive. Gardner was arrested at the scene.

     Shelby County Sheriff’s Office investigators said the victims - son Tallen, 4, and daughters Sya, 3, Sahvi, 2, and Yazhi, 5 months – were found dead at the scene from severe stab wounds. The bodies of two of the children were found in a bedroom and two others in the living room where the youngest was found in her car seat.

     Their mother was found guilty on four counts each of premeditated first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, murder in the perpetration of aggravated child abuse, aggravated child neglect involving a deadly weapon, and murder in the perpetration of aggravated child neglect involving a deadly weapon.

    Gardner was sentenced to life on each murder count and to 15 years on each of the other counts. The judge ordered that the sentences run concurrently.

     The case was handled by Chief Prosecutor Christensen and Asst. Dist. Atty. Dru Carpenter of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit which prosecutes cases of child sexual abuse and severe physical abuse of child victims; rape and aggravated rape of adult victims, and abuse of elderly and vulnerable adults.   SVU reviews child-victim cases with Shelby County’s multi-agency Child Protection Investigative Team.