South Daytona Mom Takes Plea Deal In Son's Murder

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South Daytona, FL - A South Daytona woman will remain behind bars for a very long time after taking a plea deal in connection to the murder of her 4-year-old son.

27-year-old Mikkia S. Lewis entered no contest to a second-degree murder charge in Volusia County court yesterday (September 25th) as part of a plea deal with the office of Florida 7th Circuit State Attorney R.J. Larizza.

A spokesperson with Larizza's office says Lewis could get life in prison once her sentencing hearing takes place, but the minimum she can be sentenced to by the judge is 40 years. Prosecutors were planning on going for the death penalty before the deal was made.

Lewis and her boyfriend at the time - 37-year-old Joe G. McCaskell - were initially arrested in April 2013 by the South Daytona Police Department after he called 911 saying Lewis' son, Ke'Andre Coleman, wasn't breathing.

Paramedics declared the boy dead at the scene soon after arriving at Lewis' South Palmetto Avenue apartment, noting that the child had likely been dead for several hours before the 911 call, per her arrest report.

Investigators discovered afterward that the boy had died from injuries suffered while being tortured by his mother and McCaskell and that the boy had been subject to chronic physical abuse.

Among the injuries discovered during his autopsy include bruises to his forehead, left cheek, bottom lip, left arm, buttocks and left ankle along with a mutilated left nipple, cuts in and around his armpits likely caused by fingernails and scrapes and scabs on both sides of his body.

Two types of shoe impressions were also found all over the child's body during the autopsy, as were open sores on his buttocks, an open cut inside his mouth, dislocated shoulders and hemorrhaging in his thighs.

SDPD believes the child was also beaten with a belt as well as with shoes despite Lewis' claims that the boy had gotten hurt by falling down the stairs at the apartment complex she lived in.

McCaskell was convicted of third-degree murder and aggravated child abuse by a Volusia jury last May in connection to the boy's death. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in July.

No sentencing date has been set for Lewis. A pre-sentencing hearing could take place as soon as November, per Larizza's office.