LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — Tyshael Martin talked about putting on a steely, emotionless face as she was interrogated about the death of her boyfriend’s daughter.
Inside, though, Martin said she was experiencing a wild array of emotions as reality set in that she might be separated from her daughters and spend the rest of her life behind bars.
“I was weak, in darkness, lost,” she wrote, complaining of mental health problems and a break from God she said she was working through in jail. “It’s not in my character to be a mean girl.”
Martin’s letter was one of several addressed to her boyfriend, LoJuan Sessions. Both live at the Lake County Jail as they await their trials for 9-year-old Jamaria Sessions’ death.
Martin faces the death penalty. Prosecutors said she tortured Jamaria through forced exercise and physical abuse to the point Jamaria’s body gave up.
LoJuan faces an aggravated manslaughter charge. He was not at home the night Jamaria died, but investigators said he was aware of the abuse, and at times encouraged and directed it, referring to it as “boot camp.”
Their back-and-forth correspondence, collected by prosecutors as evidence in October, often touched on Jamaria, discussing the girl’s behavior and the punishments they dictated – as well as the adults’ shortcomings.
“By you having her stand in the corner… during those 8 days she too grew sleep deprived,” Martin wrote. “Which would explain why she kept falling and possibly being so disobedient. I was so mad at her I couldn’t even look at her.”
That wasn’t the only time Martin spent ink saying LoJuan shouldered responsibility for Jamaria’s death. At times, though, she admitted her own wrongdoing.
“We would talk to her through the camera telling her to run,” Martin wrote. “Yes, sometimes I got so caught up in what I was doing outside the house till she was running a long time. It wasn’t on purpose.”
“Something went terribly wrong,” Martin surmised, adding that they never deprived Jamaria of food or water. “I can say we really did hit below the belt too much… you know we are both responsible in different ways.”
LoJuan’s responses to Martin made it clear he was standing by his girlfriend, even as he expressed frustration she was trying to put more of the blame on him.
“Ur [sic] interview breaks my heart,” he wrote. “The 1st chance you got and every other chance you literally blamed me.”
Sessions said he too wanted to know what happened to his daughter, and confronted Martin about several things she told investigators about the days leading up to Jamaria’s death.
However, he tried to encourage Martin, telling her that her letters showed there was no premeditation prosecutors could latch on to to convict her on a 1st degree murder charge.
“Every interview I did they wanted me to say you were a monster,” he wrote. “That is why they hunt me, they think I was protecting you… I pray you tell these people I’m innocent.”
The letters also shed light on the second deadly abuse case to happen shortly after Jamaria’s death, when 10-year-old Xavier Williams died after 10-pound weights were repeatedly dropped on him.
Martin’s letters indicated she had become friends – or at least friendly – with Kimberley Mills, Xavier’s mother, who is expected to change her plea from not guilty for his murder next month.
She wrote to LoJuan asking if he could approach Mills’ boyfriend, Andre Walker, who has also been charged with his murder.
“The girl whose boyfriend unalived her son asked… if you talk to him,” Martin said. “I get the feeling she wants to talk to him but she says she needs to know how he feels towards her.”
Martin and Sessions have both pleaded not guilty. Both are working their way through the pre-trial process. Trial dates have not been set.
Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.