A Pennsylvania judge reportedly shot her ex-boyfriend in the head, a crime she was cleared of five years earlier when she shot her ex-husband.
Pennsylvania judge in the hot seat after shooting
Dauphin County Magisterial District Judge Sonya M. McKnight was arrested for shooting her ex-boyfriend, Michael McCoy, 54, on February 9.
The 57-year-old magistrate was charged with first-degree attempted murder and aggravated assault, after shooting McCoy in the head while he slept.
According to court records, McCoy got caught in a “Fatal Attraction” type situation, when he tried to break up with McKnight multiple times.
The pair were reportedly involved for a year and McKnight was living in McCoy’s home.
After their break up, he came home from a bar and found McKnight lounging on his couch in her pajamas.
McCoy told her she needed to go and said he would enlist her mother to help him if she resisted.
She eventually decided to leave the house, and McCoy told police “it was like she finally understood that it was over.”
He went to bed at 11:00 p.m. on Friday night and woke up in the middle of the night with “massive head pain.”
When he started screaming in panic and pain, McKnight rushed into the bedroom and asked him what he had done to himself.
She called 911 and told dispatchers that she “could not explain what happened and stated that she was sleeping and heard him screaming.”
McCoy was taken to the hospital and found to have a gunshot wound that went in at his right temple and exited through the left side of his skull.
McCoy was left blind by the incident, and told police that he did not inflict the gunshot wound himself.
When officers arrived at his house, they found a gun that was registered to McKnight on the premises, and discovered gunshot residue on her hands.
McCoy told the cops he believed his ex-girlfriend followed him tot the bar that night, but she denied ever leaving the home.
Police quickly dismantled her lie, when they saw her leaving the residence on a neighbor’s doorbell camera.
Pennsylvania judge isn’t a first time shooter
The violence against McCoy follows an extremely similar situation that happened to McKnight’s ex-husband in 2019.
She shot him in the groin in 2019, when he was helping her move furniture within her home.
Her actions came after multiple calls to police for domestic disputes and various protection orders.
The Office of the Attorney General reviewed all the evidence of the case, and determined that McKnight had acted in self-defense at the time.
No charges were ever filed, but that’s not the case with her latest shooting.
McKnight could spend up to 40 years behind bars if convicted of first-degree murder, and is currently being held at a local prison on $300,000 bail.
The case will be tried in a neighboring county to avoid any conflict of interest.
