Of all the heart-breaking photographs of Lincoln Davitte the prosecutor could have displayed during her closing argument, the one she picked might have been the worst.
The shot taken from a video recording is slightly out of a focus, but it’s clear it was the last photograph taken of the 23-month-old boy who wept as the man convicted of his murder Friday carried him from his daycare classroom. In the distance, an employee mopping the floor paused to stare after the pair.
About 20 minutes later, Lincoln suffered a catastrophic brain injury. He never recovered. He was pronounced dead at the Children’s Hospital of Georgia on May 4, 2019.
On Friday, May 13, at the end of a trial in which pictures of Lincoln’s small body laid out on an autopsy table were displayed along with photographs of what a baby’s head looks like after his skull is cracked from top to bottom and around each side, the jury deliberated a little over an hour before convicting Charles Michael Sconyers of murder and child abuse charges.
When Lincoln died, Sconyers had only lived with him, his mother and his sister for about six months. But during those last weeks and months of his life, Lincoln came to daycare with two black eyes in February and another black eye in March. Two days before he suffered a final injury, Lincoln had yet another black eye and a busted lip.
“Nobody spoke up for Lincoln, not DFCS, not the daycare, not his mother,” Assistant District Natalie Paine said to the jury in her final statement Friday. “It’s time now. Lincoln deserves justice.”
Sconyers, 31, picked up Lincoln from daycare just after 6 p.m. May 1, 2019. At 6:36 p.m. he called 911 to report the toddler was unconscious. He was the only one at home with Lincoln.
The jury heard from the medical professionals who responded to the 911 call and the doctors who tried to save his life, from the daycare owner who produced two written reports of Lincoln’s prior injuries, and from seemingly dueling medical experts about what caused the massive brain damage.
For Sconyers’ many supporters, including several who testified as character witnesses, it is impossible to believe a man who dedicated himself to public service as a member of the Augusta Fire Department would hurt a child.
Sconyers himself told the jury Thursday how he considered Lincoln his own child and that he thinks about the toddler’s demise day and night. Sconyers testified he was in the bathroom and sent Lincoln out on the back patio with chalk. It was only a moment later when he heard running, a thud and a cry. He assumed Lincoln tripped and hit his head on the cement, Sconyers said.
Sconyers lead defense attorney, Keith Johnson, argued to the jury in closing that the prosecution’s case made no sense. Sconyers loved Lincoln like his own child, and he knew that day that Lincoln’s mother would be home at any moment, Johnson said.
“It’s been three years this man has lived with this nightmare,” Johnson said, adding, “He is not what they are trying to make he out to be.”
The person others saw in Sconyers wasn’t what Lincoln saw, according to the state’s case this week.
Lincoln told his mother that Sconyers hit him, a witness testified this week. One of Lincoln’s daycare teachers tried to alert the owner that Lincoln had had multiple recent injuries, but the daycare owner believed Lincoln’s mother when Lincoln showed up with a set of black eyes, according to a sworn statement the jury didn’t hear this week. The daycare owner did call the Department of Family and Children Services when Lincoln arrived a second time with a black eye in March 2019, but the DFCS case worker accepted the explanations provided by Sconyers and Lincoln’s mother and closed the case.
No one may ever know what Sconyers hit Lincoln’s with, the prosecutor said, but there was only one person who could have hit him that last time. Lincoln was right to be afraid to leave his daycare with Sconyers that day, Paine said. He suffered a terrible, painful death, she said.
Given the opportunity to speak before sentencing Friday afternoon, Sconyers said he felt terrible for what happened to Lincoln, but he didn’t do it.
“This is not justice,” he said. “This isn’t right.”
Lincoln’s biological father, Tyler Davitte, told the judge Friday he didn’t see Friday as a day for celebration, but there was finally justice for Lincoln. Davitte hadn’t been part of Lincoln’s short life, he acknowledged.
“I apologize to my son that I wasn’t around for him. That’s on me and I’ll have to answer to God for that. I hope God has no mercy for (Sconyers),” Davitte said.
Judge J. Wade Padgett sentenced Sconyers to life in prison. Sconyers will be eligible for parole.
