Daughter sentenced to life in prison for mother's fatal stabbing on Christmas

Delila Sherwood Evans at her sentencing hearing on Thursday, April 5, 2018. (WDIV)

CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. – The daughter of a physically disabled woman who was stabbed to death in Clinton Township on Christmas was sentenced Thursday morning.

Delila Sherwood Evans was found guilty of first-degree murder but mentally ill. The jury returned a unanimous verdict in February. She was 17 years old at the time of the murder

Evans' mother, 45-year-old Sonia Riang, was bound to a wheelchair and was killed at the Washington Place Apartments on Christmas in 2016.

ORIGINAL REPORT: 17-year-old daughter taken into custody after mother stabbed to death in Clinton Township

The mother was stabbed multiple times. She was a mother of two children, ages 7 and 17.

Sources close to the investigation said the daughter has a history of domestic violence and had stabbed her 7-year-old brother in the past. Court records show the attack happened two months prior to the fatal stabbing and she was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Prosecutors dropped the charges because her brother didn’t want to go forward with the case.

“She doesn’t understand anything,” Evan’s half-sister, Roseanna Evans, said. “Obviously she has a mental illness.”

Sources said the victim’s cousin found the body and called police.

Police found the teenage girl at a 7-Eleven in Fraser.

 Evans was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.