As Circuit Judge Jalal Harb sat at the bench in a Bartow courtroom on Feb. 5, he held the power to usher Cheyanne Jessie into a unique category. Having been convicted of killing her father and her 6-year-old daughter, Jessie faced the possibility of becoming the first woman sentenced to death in Polk County.
A jury had recommended that Jessie be executed for the fatal shooting and stabbing of her daughter, Meredith, in 2015, while suggesting a life sentence for her father’s murder.
Instead, Harb sentenced Jessie to life for both killings. That decision placed her in another rare category: convicted murderers who have had jury recommendations of a death penalty overridden by a judge.
BARTOW Convicted double-murderer Cheyanne Nicole Jesse will spend the rest of her life in prison for the brutal murders of her 50-year-old father, Mark Ivan Weekly, and 6-year-old daughter, Meredith Leeann Jessie.
“It is this court’s conclusion that Cheyanne Nicole Jesse should lose her liberty, not her life,” said Circuit Judge Jalal Harb. “Accordingly, as to count one, you are sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. As to count two, you are sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Jessie, who is now 31, confessed in August 2015 to killing her father and daughter, who investigators believe died on July 18, 2015 the day they were last seen by a friend of Weekly’s. Weekly was stabbed at least 12 times and shot in the head three times, while Meredith was repeatedly stabbed and shot in the back of the head. It happened in Weekly’s rented west Drane Field Road home.