A Michigan man “snapped” when his 5-year-old stepdaughter said she wanted something to eat — stabbing the little girl to death, and then setting her body on fire, a court heard this week.
Thomas McClellan, 25, of Holt, admitted that he knocked Luna Michelle Younger to the ground, sat on her hips and stabbed her in the chest on Nov. 1 after she wouldn’t leave his room, Detective Chuck Buckland of the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office testified in a preliminary hearing Thursday, according to reports.
McClellan then wrapped the girl’s lifeless body in blankets, dumped alcohol on it and lit it on fire, Buckland said, according to the Lansing State Journal.
During the hearing in the 55th District Court, a medical examiner said Luna was stabbed at least five times.
McClellan is charged with murder, first-degree child abuse and first-degree arson in the gruesome death of his stepdaughter at the family’s Keller Road home. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of the crime.
First responder Delhi Township firefighter Corey Drolett said that when he entered the apartment, he did not initially see Luna under the blankets.
When he finally found her body, “I knew the victim had expired,” Drolett testified.
Although he knew she was already dead, Drolett passed her body through the window and instructed another firefighter to “very lightly” perform CPR, he said.
“Based on the situation [I] felt that would show [the mother] that we were attempting some effort,” he said during testimony, the newspaper reported.
As McClellan was brutally murdering his stepdaughter, the girl’s mother, Victoria McClellan, was at work, and she and her husband had been “bickering” earlier in the day, she told officials.
She convinced McClellan to surrender to police and he was taken into custody about four hours after the initial 911 call.