Standup9ja: 12-year-old girl beaten, stabbed to death by stepfather

Standup9ja: 12-year-old girl beaten, stabbed to death by stepfather

A man has been charged with first-degree murder and ordered held without bail in connection with the beating and stabbing death of a 12-year-old girl in Chicago Sunday in what police say was part of a domestic dispute.

The girl, Alexis Stubbs, sustained multiple stab wounds and blunt trauma, the Chicago Police Department said in a release.

Alexis was beaten and stabbed in her apartment building on North Beacon St. around 9:45 p.m., according to police. She was rushed to the hospital and later pronounced dead.

In court Tuesday, Cook County Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil ordered John Singleton, 31, to be held without bail Tuesday on a first-degree murder charge in the girl’s death.

Singleton was like a stepfather to Alexis, prosecutors said in court, according to the Chicago Tribune.

“The rage against this 12-year-old, whether it was directed against her in some form or some pent-up anger against the mother … it was brutal,” she told the court, the Tribune reports.

Singleton’s lawyer, assistant public defender Kathryn Lisco, told the judge that he has a history of mental illness.

“He had been previously treated for a mental illness and was receiving medication,” Lisco tells PEOPLE.

After the judge learned that Singleton has been suicidal, she ordered him be evaluated at the jail’s medical facility, says Lisco.

On Monday at 3:14 a.m., police arrested Singleton a block away from the girl’s apartment building in an alleyway on North Dover St. Singleton is believed to be the girl’s mother’s boyfriend or ex-boyfriend, according to police.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the victim’s mother called 911 to get Singleton to leave the house before the alleged beating.

He was charged with one count of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated kidnapping – inflict harm, and one count of aggravated harm to Police/Department of Corrections/Department of Human Services, which are all felonies, according to police.

According to the Tribune, Singleton allegedly left the 12-year-old covered and blood and gasping for breath before sending a taunting text message to her mother, according to prosecutors.

Singleton had been imprisoned for an aggravated battery conviction and was released on parole in April, according to court records. He had pleaded guilty to felony aggravated domestic battery for choking a woman in 2014, according to court records.

Singleton has also been convicted of misdemeanor domestic battery in 2012, according to court records.