HINESVILLE, Ga. (Court TV) — A man who pleaded guilty to killing a 6-year-old girl whose body was found malnourished at a staged crime scene in Georgia was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday.
Brandon Robinson stands in court on Sept. 28, 2026. (Court TV)
Brandon Robinson, 40, accepted a plea deal in which prosecutors dropped charges of malice murder, felony murder and cruelty to children; he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and making false statements in the death of his girlfriend’s 6-year-old daughter, A’Niyah Perry.
Prosecutors first charged Robinson and his girlfriend, Sherry Perry, after A’Niyah was found lifeless at Perry’s home on May 1, 2023. Hinesville Detective Johnathan Santiago testified at a preliminary hearing that Perry first told police that she put her daughter to sleep at 4:30 p.m. Perry said that when she went to check on A’Niyah four hours later, the child was not breathing and was unconscious.
Perry said that she had been in the home all day, but investigators quickly determined that wasn’t true. Santiago said that surveillance video showed Robinson and Perry arriving at the home hours before calling the police, with A’Niyah already dead and wrapped in a blue blanket.
When officers questioned Perry, she admitted that she had lied to the police. “Through her own words, the child was staged there, was brought from another state and already deceased, transported here to Hinesville and staged for us to find,” Santiago said. Perry said she had been traveling with the victim, her other two children — who were 4 years old and 8 months old at the time — and Robinson, a truck driver. The five had been living in his truck and on the road for more than a month before A’Niyah’s death, Perry told investigators.
A’Niyah Perry (Smalls Funeral Home, Inc.)
Santiago said that A’Niyah’s father showed him a photo of his daughter, but that child was “unrecognizable” as the 6-year-old who died. The photograph, taken in December 2022, showed a well-nourished child with “healthy, thick, chunky cheeks,” Santiago said. A’Niyah’s father said he hadn’t seen his daughter since December. Santiago said that when he first saw the victim, she appeared “severely malnourished. And what I mean by that, her skeletal structure can be seen through her skin.”
Perry said that her daughter had multiple medical issues, including cerebral palsy, and that A’Niyah was a spastic quadriplegic. She told detectives that the child had been sick for approximately two weeks before her death, but she never took her to a doctor. She said she had been feeding the victim puree and milk.
Robinson’s 30-year sentence includes 20 years to serve and 10 years of probation.
Perry previously pleaded guilty to all the charges she faced except for malice murder, which prosecutors dropped, and she was sentenced to life in prison. She filed a handwritten request with the court to withdraw her plea; that letter to the judge says, “Please note, I have no counsel representing me, as I was abandoned.” A judge scheduled her to return to court on Oct. 26 to be heard.
