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MAN WHO BEAT DAUGHTER TO DEATH GETS LIFE

DETROIT, MI -- The Convicted murderer Bernard G. Kelly was sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole Thursday for beating his 3-year-old daughter to death and shooting two others in an attack on a Detroit day care last September. At the sentencing, Kelly denied he was the attacker in the Sept. 28 violence that left Stefanie Belue dead and Sherita Griggs, 22, and Annette Rice, 44, wounded. Belue was beaten with a handgun. Rice and Griggs were shot multiple times. They are recovering from their wounds and have had many surgeries since the shootings. "If you did not want to have a child, you should have kept your pants on," Griggs said in a victim's impact statement read in court. Stefanie's mother, Charleen Belue, 38, spoke of her loss. "Only a person without a soul could go there with the intent to murder a child, his child," Belue said. Rice and her husband, Kenneth, read statements as well and referred to Kelly as the "lowest being on Earth." "His intent was to seek and destroy any and everything in his path," Kenneth Rice said. Kelly, 37, blamed his arrest on the media's coverage of the attack and the wishes of the victims' families to make someone pay. "Why was I found guilty? Why? The prosecutor filled my trial with garbage," Kelly told Wayne County Circuit Judge Gregory Bill. "I was put in place to take the damn fall. I was railroaded," a tearful Kelly said. Prosecutors said Kelly went to the day care in the 19000 block of Woodbine with the intent of killing his daughter to avoid paying child support. A day before the attack, Kelly had gone to Belue's home to plead with her not to proceed with a child support hearing that was scheduled for Sept. 28. Throughout his two-week trial last month, Kelly was silent and unemotional. But on Thursday, he spoke out repeatedly during the proceedings and later broke into tears. Bill ordered Kelly to be quiet and threatened to remove him from the courtroom. Kelly was convicted Feb. 10 of first-degree murder, premeditated murder, felony murder, child abuse, two counts of assault with intent to murder and committing a felony with a firearm. Besideslife in prison without parole for the murder conviction, Kelly was sentenced to 50 to 75 years in prison for the other convictions. Prosecutor Lisa Lindsey said Kelly is a sociopath and could not be rehabilitated. Kelly plans to appeal. In a final statement to Kelly, who served in the Marine Corps, Bill said: "The Marines are known as the few, the proud, the Marines. You, Mr. Kelly, are not one of them."