Man, Who Killed 5-Year-Old Mya Patel In Louisiana Gets 100 Years In Jail

NEW YORK, NY (IANS) – A 35-year-old man has been sentenced by a judge in Caddo Parish, LA,to 100 years of hard labor for causing the death of a five-year-old IndianAmerican child in 2021.

Mya Patel was playing in her hotel room in Monkhouse Drive, Shreveport, in March 2021 when a bullet discharged from Joseph Lee Smith’s gun missed the target and hit her.

District Judge John D. Mosely Jr. sentenced Smith to 60 years of hard labor without benefit of probation, parole, or reduction of sentence.The judge also ordered that Smith, who was found guilty of manslaughter in January this year, must serve 20 years for obstruction of justice and 20 years for aggravated battery, for separate convictions associated with the Patel slaying.Those terms must also be served at hard labor without benefit of probation, parole, or reduction of sentence.

In 2021, Smith had got into an altercation with another man in the parking lot of the Super 8 Motel which was owned and operated at that time by Vimal and Snehal Patel. They lived in a ground-floor unit with Mya and her younger sibling. During the altercation, Smith struck the other man with a 9-mm handgun, which discharged a bullet.

The bullet missed the other man but went into the apartment to struck Mya in the head before grazing Snehal Patel. Mya was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she battled for three days before being declared dead on March 23.

The DA’s office said in the press release that “the terms were enhanced by Smith being a repeat felony offender and must be served consecutively, for the total of 100 years.”