A Clemmons man smothered his girlfriendâs 15-month-old daughter to death with a pillow because she would not stop crying after she was burned by the manâs cigarette, a Forsyth County prosecutor said in court Thursday.
Dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, Jesse Wayne Perkins, stood in front of Judge David Hall of Forsyth Superior Court on Thursday morning and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the August 2018 death of the toddler, Carolina Rose Dodd.
The plea saved Perkins from a possible sentence of death if the case had gone to trial and a jury had convicted him of first-degree murder. Forsyth County prosecutors had declared last year that they would pursue the death penalty. The only other sentence for a first-degree murder conviction is life in prison without the possibility of parole.