The bullet fired from Taylor’s gun struck Zwerner in the left hand and her upper left chest, breaking bones and puncturing a lung. “That is my son, so I am, as a parent, obviously willing to take responsibility for him because he can’t take responsibility for himself,” Taylor said.ĭuring her sentencing in federal court last month, one of Taylor’s attorneys read aloud a brief statement in which Taylor said she would feel remorse “for the rest of my life.” Taylor told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in May that she feels responsible and apologized to Zwerner. She also has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a condition sharing symptoms with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to court documents. James Ellenson, one of Taylor’s attorneys, said earlier this year there were ” mitigating circumstances ” surrounding the situation, including Taylor’s miscarriages and postpartum depression. Investigators had found nearly an ounce of marijuana in Taylor’s bedroom following the shooting. Taylor also pleaded guilty to the federal marijuana-weapons charge. As part of that plea deal, local prosecutors agreed to drop a misdemeanor count of recklessly storing a firearm.

Taylor pleaded guilty earlier this year to the felony neglect charge. Taylor initially told investigators she had secured her gun with a trigger lock, but investigators said they never found one. He concealed the weapon in his backpack and then his pocket before shooting his teacher, Abby Zwerner, in front of her first-grade class. Taylor’s son told authorities he got his mother’s 9mm handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse. The combination of her state and federal sentences amounts to a total punishment of nearly four years behind bars. Taylor was sentenced in November to 21 months in federal prison for using marijuana while owning a gun, which is illegal under U.S. The state sentence she received today from Circuit Court Judge Christopher Papile was stiffer than what is called for in state sentencing guidelines and harsher than a joint sentencing recommendation of six months prosecutors and Taylor’s lawyers had agreed to in a plea deal. Today’s sentencing was the second time Deja Taylor was held to account for the classroom shooting, which stunned the nation and shook the military shipbuilding city of Newport News. The mother of a 6-year-old who shot his teacher in Virginia was sentenced today to two years in prison for felony child neglect, nearly a year after her son used her gun to critically wound the educator.

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