KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Fountain City mother convicted in the death of her 5-year-old daughter in 2019 was sentenced on Friday.
On March 8, a Knox County jury spared Robin Howington, 41, from a murder conviction in the death of her child, who was shot to death at close range as she lay on the couch of her home watching Netflix.
Howington was convicted of reckless homicide and aggravated child neglect rather than the more serious offense of felony murder. The aggravated child neglect charge carried the heaviest prison sentence.
On Friday, Judge Scott Green sentenced Howington to serve a total of 22 years in prison. She could have faced more than 30 years in prison for her other charges, but Green ordered her individual sentences to be served concurrently rather than consecutively. She will have to serve at least 85% of her sentence before she will be eligible for parole.
During the sentencing, Green said the case was one of the most strange and unusual he had presided over. He said there was one thing that was glaringly obvious to him: Howington was not the victim in this case.
During the sentencing hearing, the state argued that Howington should face maximum penalties with consecutive sentencing due to her "extensive" criminal background, claiming she was a dangerous offender and had drug charges on her record. Howington's defense attorney Mike Whalen argued she should not face consecutive sentencing because she had no prior felony convictions.
Howington began crying as Whalen talked about the night of the child's death. She did not testify during her sentencing.
The state then continued to argue that the child's death was "completely preventable" and said Howington's actions after her daughter was shot should be taken into consideration for her sentencing.
Before reading her sentence, Green said Howington could not have made things worse in this case based on her actions the night her child died.
During the trial, Howington testified that her 2-year-old son fired the shot that killed daughter Destiny Oliver the night of Sept. 14, 2019. It was never made clear in the trial who shot the child based on the evidence, and Green said that was partly because Howington tried to cover up key details in the case on the night of the shooting.
Green said Howington attempted to hide the gun used to kill her daughter while her body was still warm. When taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, he said Howington tried to solicit another person to take her cell phone so it couldn't be looked at and then tried to destroy it. After that, he said Howington continued to lie about what happened.
"You made up story after story after story," he said.
Green said those actions were a clear enhancing factor in her sentencing. Still, Green's sentence was restrained because he could have ordered Howington to serve her sentences consecutively or sentence her to more time for the felony child neglect charge.
During her trial in March, Howington showed little emotion after the verdict was read and she was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. Testimony and evidence indicated Howington's little boy found the loaded gun in his mom's Balsam Drive home and fired it at his sister from a distance of about two feet.
Destiny likely lived less than a minute afterward, experts testified this week. The bullet pierced her hand, a TV remote and then went through her chest as she lay on the couch, testimony revealed.
During the trial, prosecutors Ashley McDermott and Heather Good told jurors the evidence on its face -- and from Howington's own mouth -- showed she was guilty of felony murder. The charge essentially states that the perpetrator is guilty of felony murder while committing another felony -- in this case, failing to adequately protect Destiny.
"We are here because of one person's actions," Good argued.
She continued: "It could have been prevented. It should have been prevented by the one person who had the duty and the responsibility to do so. And like I said, failed miserably at it."
Said McDermott: "In the five years this case has been pending, she has only been worried about herself."
The state contended Howington was criminally responsible for her daughter's death based on her actions and negligence, that she tried to cover several things up, and that she did nothing but tell lie after lie.
Investigators could not definitively say who shot Destiny. Howington denied that she did it. In the hours after the shooting, she told police first that it was a random man who barged into her house; then that it was Destiny's father; and then that it was her son.
When she took the stand, she told jurors she'd failed to keep track of the loaded 9mm pistol and that while she was outside smoking a cigarette, her little boy got the gun and fired one shot.
Forensic evidence showed the presence of gunshot residue -- chemicals discharged when a shot is fired -- on the boy's clothes and his mother's dress. An autopsy also showed Destiny was probably shot from about two feet away as she lay on the couch.
On the night her daughter died, while riding in a police car to the hospital, Howington texted an acquaintance that her son had shot her daughter.
At the hospital, she asked a woman in a restroom to get rid of her phone, indicative of her deceptive attempts to avoid police scrutiny. Found on the phone were messages about selling narcotics, previous testimony has shown.
Defense attorney Mike Whalen told jurors from the start that the little boy had fired the gunshot. Howington tried desperately to protect the child, he argued.
"This is a family tragedy that the state is trying to make worse," he said.
Whalen said Howington's inconsistent statements about who pulled the trigger were due to extreme distress because she endured post-traumatic stress disorder from a prior sexual assault. She was in no rational frame of mind, he told jurors.