Featured Image Credit: 11Alives
Topics: Crime, True Crime, US News
Anish Vij
Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
A man unknowingly set his own prison sentence after a judge asked him what punishment would fit someone guilty of the same crime.
Christopher McNabb, from Covington, Georgia, and his partner, Courtney Marie Bell, were the parents of 15-day-old Caliyah McNabb.
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In October 2017, they reported their 15-day-old daughter missing, claiming abduction. Later, a search party found the baby’s body wrapped in McNabb’s t-shirt inside his bag in nearby woods.
An autopsy showed the infant died from blunt-force head trauma, whilst the jury also learned that both parents had been on crystal meth when McNabb beat her to death.
A Newton County jury convicted McNabb of multiple charges in 2019, which included malice murder, felony murder, second‑degree murder, aggravated battery, two counts of child cruelty, and concealing a death.
Meanwhile, Bell received convictions for murder and child cruelty.
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"I am guilty because I did drugs, but I ain’t never seen this comin’, that’s my baby. I went to put her to sleep and I woke up and she was gone." Bell said in her interrogation, according to Fox 5 Atlanta
At sentencing, McNabb said he was innocent, telling the judge: "I'm innocent, I didn't do it. I've maintained that the whole time.
"I just don't understand how you find somebody guilty of doing something to a 15-day-old baby, because there was no evidence whatsoever that proved anything about me putting my hands on those kids.
"I've never done it, I never would. I don't believe in it. I was beat as a child and I don't agree with it at all. I would never do it. I would never do this.
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"That's all I got to say. I'm innocent."
The judge then asked: “If you’re innocent, what sentence should the person who did this get?”
To which McNabb replied: “They deserve the maximum.”
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After his comment, the judge revealed that McNabb had warranted the harshest punishment: “On the crime of malice murder, I sentence you to life in confinement without parole.”
As of 2025, McNabb remains behind bars in Georgia, serving life without the possibility of parole.
His partner Bell received a 30‑year sentence for her convictions, although some counts were later overturned on appeal.
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All of McNabb's appeals have been denied.