A Texas nurse who admitted to killing a 28-year-old mother and stealing her infant son from a parking lot in broad daylight appeared before a judge today asking to be released on bond.
Verna McClain, 30, was shaky and soft-spoken as she appeared in court this morning on charges of capital murder for the brazen daylight shooting of Kayla Golden, a mother of three, that occurred Tuesday afternoon.
McClain told cops that she killed Golden and kidnapped Golden’s 3-day-old son, Keegan Schuchardt, because she had recently miscarried and was going to try and pass the baby off as her own to her fiance. Police said that despite the baby being white and McClain and her fiance both being black, McClain intended to lie and say the baby was her own.
“There were statements that were made by Ms. McClain that led us to believe this was an intentional act on her part, not that Ms. Golden was targeted specifically, but that this was part of a plan to kidnap a child,” Brett Ligon, the Montgomery County district attorney, said Wednesday.
McClain’s state-appointed attorneys said today that their client was “shaken and very upset” and on suicide watch in jail, where she is being held without the option of bond. Attorneys said they would ask for McClain to be released on bond because she has three children and would not pose a threat to the community.
They called the murder an “isolated incident,” and said they plan to enter a plea of not guilty, despite McClain’s confession to police that she committed the murder. The attorneys said the confession may have been coerced.
Bruce Zenor, of the Montgomery County sheriff’s office, said that McClain’s choice of Golden as a target was random.
“There is nothing to indicate this was anything beyond planning further than” going to the clinic, Zenor said.
McClain told a Montgomery County judge today that she had no assets, did not own a home or car and had no savings.
The Montgomery County District Attorney said they would continue to press for McClain to be held without bond. Investigators told ABC News that they expected McClain’s defense to plead insanity.
McClain’s estranged husband told the Associated Press he was shocked at the shooting.
“I can’t believe she shot someone. That’s not Vera,” Theo McClain, of San Diego, told the AP. The couple had raised three children, who are being cared for by a relative in Houston after McClain’s arrest.
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