COLUMBUS, Ohio (Court TV) — A woman standing trial in Ohio admitted that she killed her foster son before leaving his body in a sewer, but says she was insane at the time.
Pammy Maye sits in court on Nov. 9, 2026. (Court TV)
Pammy Maye, 51, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse in the death of Darnell Taylor, a 5-year-old who was in her custody when he died.
Maye admitted to killing the child in interviews with police, and her attorney, Samuel Shamansky, began his opening statement to jurors on Monday by telling them, “I’m here to reiterate, in no uncertain terms, my client, Pammy Maye, took the life of her 5-year-old son.” But, Shamansky said, Maye was not legally responsible for her actions because of her severe mental illness: “It’s a tragedy of epic proportions.”
Prosecutor Katherine Wolfe told the jury in her opening statement that the events that led to Darnell’s death began in the Maye household on Feb. 13, 2024, when the defendant became upset with the victim for “sneaking a granola bar and peanut butter crackers into his bed for a snack.” Wolfe said, “It was at that time she decided she was going to take his life.”
In interviews with police, Maye said that on Feb. 14, after her husband left for work, she sent Darnell back to his bedroom. Then, just after 11 a.m., she went into his room, carrying a black plastic garbage bag. “Pammy Maye slowly pulled the cover off of Darnell’s head, replacing it with the plastic bag, hoping he wouldn’t notice the transition,” Wolfe said. “Putting it over Darnell’s head, securing it, and then walking out of the room.”
Pammy Maye is seen in the hospital on body-worn camera footage shown in court on Nov. 9, 2026. (Court TV)
Wolfe said that Maye returned to the room 10 minutes later and found the child dead. “She pulled the bag over the remainder of his body and tied it in a double knot,” Wolfe said. Maye then allegedly hid the child’s body in a living room closet. When her husband came home, it was late and he did not check on the child, assuming he was asleep, Wolfe said. Once her husband fell asleep, Maye retrieved Darnell’s body, put it in her car and drove through her parents’ old neighborhood looking for a sewer, Wolfe said. “She moved Darnell’s body to the front seat of the vehicle,” Wolfe said, “because she wanted this to be, in her own words, ‘a quick transaction.'”
While Wolfe told the jury that Maye’s interviews with police prove her guilt, Shamansky suggested they prove just the opposite. He read the jury a quote from the defendant’s interview with police from her hospital bed, in which she didn’t make much sense:
I was really upset with my son. And then the same day at 11:06 in the morning when I came home, it was about 3 o’clock. It was like, 3 o’clock on the 13th. Then my husband left the house at 10. Then about 11:06 that day, I already had it in my mind, because it was already in my head. I take this black bag, this compressor bag. My husband was — not my husband, but my son, was kind of always submissive to me because he was fear and intimidated of me. Because I don’t take no foolishness from him.
“The woman who committed this unspeakable and horrible act was so consumed with mental illness, mental illnesses we can only begin to imagine, she was most certainly unable and ill-equipped to understand how wrong this act was, to appreciate the wrongfulness of her act,” Shamansky said.
Police began investigating on Feb. 14, 2024, after Maye’s husband called 911, saying that when the defendant returned home, she confessed to killing Darnell. “She told me she killed our foster child,” he said on the 911 call played for the jury on Monday. “She just said, ‘I’ve got a plan,’ and that’s when I called you and told her, I’m not going to jail for her.”
Judge Mark Serrott paused the 911 call and admonished the jury. “Let’s make sure we pay attention, everyone on the jury,” he said. “Seems like somebody might be nodding off and I’m not going to point them out, but we have to pay attention.”
Maye was arrested in Brooklyn, Ohio, after she showed up at a 24-hour business wearing plastic bags on her feet and asking for help communicating with her husband.
