Lionel Tate

Lionel Tate was a 12 year old boy that lived with his mother in the Broward County, Florida. Tiffany's mother had left her in the care of Lionel's mother and was like a sister to Lionel. As they were playing tag, Lionel's mother was upstairs sleeping and Lionel had been playing tag with Tiffany. Tiffany wasn't feeling well and had a stomachache. She laid down and had sustained several injuries one of them being when Lionel moved her head. In January 2001, he was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of 6 year old Tiffany Eunick. When they were speaking to Lionel Tate, they decided to role play the events leading to Eunick's death. Lionel was play wrestling with Tiffany and held her tightly leading to Tiffany's torn liver. The 30 injuries that Tiffany had also compared to someone who's fallen from a 2nd floor building. When he was being questioned about the situation, he never mentioned that he had moved Tiffany when she was sleeping. The head injury that was on her head had done a significant amount of damage because she had blood on the pillow. They believed that he had been wrestling due to bad behavior at school and because his mother was away so much when he was younger. His mother was always away and she sent him to Mississippi while she was studying to become a patrol officer. When talking to the school, teachers and staff mentioned that Lionel had a certain behavior that was interesting because he stole from classmates and seemed to be the bully and kids were intimidated because he was so big for someone his age. Whenever there was a situation with Lionel's behavior, his mother would always barge in and she was in uniform always yelling and saying that her kid wouldn't do things that he was accused of doing. She seemed to defend him a lot. The Plea Deal during the trial was that he would plead guilty of second degree murder and he'd be under house arrest but he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The incident was interesting because Tiffany was under Kathleen Tate's care and she was no where near Tiffany when her son was wrestling with her. Lionel is a bigger boy and his height compared to Tiffany's is immense. He should have known better and never should have "played" with her in the way that he did.