North Carolina mother sentenced to life for killing toddler, then staged ghostly photo series

In Fayetteville, North Carolina, Jeanie Kassandra Ditty, a former Fort Bragg soldier, was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole after a jury found her guilty of first-degree murder of her 2-year-old daughter, Macy Grace. The toddler had been rushed to a hospital in December 2015 with extensive bruising, and a CT scan showed fatal brain injuries sustained within the previous 8 to 24 hours while Ditty was her sole caregiver.

Prosecutors highlighted that Macy endured at least 40 separate blows before dying two days later. Prior to the charges, Ditty arranged for photographer Sunny Jo to produce a set of “after-life” pictures that superimposed a ghostly image of Macy onto scenes with her mother, falsely claiming the child had choked on a banana. Jo waived the typical $300-$500 fee, later calling the work his biggest professional mistake but saying it gave the child a voice. The jury reached its verdict in less than three hours, and the judge added a sentence of 157 to 201 months for child abuse alongside the life term.