An Ohio man who pleaded guilty to murdering a 1-year-old because she would not stop crying was sentenced to 15 to life in prison.
Michael Mayor, 34, received his sentence on Tuesday, just over a month after changing his plea from not guilty by reason of insanity to guilty at the end of June. When Mayor was arrested in December 2024, he admitted to slamming 1-year-old Vivian Gardner’s head on the floor because she refused to stop crying. He was left to care for the girl while his wife, a professional babysitter who had been watching Vivian, went to take other children to school.
According to police, Mayor stated that “he’shook’ her, and when she cried louder, he began to’slam’ her on the bedroom floor.” He stated that this was not done on the blankets, and he repeated it several times until she stopped crying.
The Dayton Daily News was present in the courtroom when the sentence was read, which the judge noted was the mandatory sentence for a murder conviction in Ohio. Judge Jeannine Pratt told Mayor, “If I had the discretion, you would receive a much longer sentence.”
As previously reported by Law&Crime, Mayor was in charge of Vivian on December 5, 2024. When his wife returned from taking the other children to school, he informed her that Vivian was napping on the bedroom floor. At 3:00 p.m., the mayor’s wife, who had checked on the baby several times, called 911 because the little girl was still sleeping.
Vivian was transported to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a fractured skull, a subdural hematoma, and other “complex” injuries caused by a “massive impact.”
The little girl died on December 19. Mayor was arrested on December 11, 2024, and charged with felony assault and three counts of endangering children. After Vivian died from her injuries, the assault charges were upgraded to three counts of murder. When he pleaded guilty in June, he had all but one of the charges dismissed.
In court, Mayor’s defense attorney stated that his client wrote a letter apologizing to the family for his actions. According to the Dayton Daily News, Pratt appeared unmoved and stated that Mayor showed no remorse. In a statement from a spokesperson, Vivian’s family expressed dissatisfaction with the possibility that Mayor “may be free to rejoin society, to be around children once more.”
Vivian’s family has pledged to advocate for sentencing reforms “that will ensure that the punishments for violent crimes are commensurate with the impact they have on victims, their families, and our communities.”
