Mother Guilty in Stabbing Deaths of 4 Children

Dec. 21, 2021 – The mother of four young children found stabbed to death in 2016 in their southeast Shelby County apartment was found guilty Wednesday by a judge who rejected her defense of insanity, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

      Criminal Court Judge James Lammey Jr. said Shanynthia Gardner, now 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.

      In a non-jury bench trial last week, 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.

        “Our position from day one is that she has a mental disease, but we’ve always felt that she could appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions,” said Chief Prosecutor Eric Christensen of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit. “Our goal was to get justice for these four babies – Tallen, Sya, Sahvi and Yazhi.”

     Gardner, who has been in custody since the incident, is scheduled for sentencing on Jan. 28. Each of the four first-degree murder counts carries a life sentence.

     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. Two children were found in a bedroom and two in the living room where the youngest was found in her car seat.

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

     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.