Man says he killed stepdaughter because 'it wasn't dinner time'

LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan man had already admitted stabbing and killing his 5-year-old stepdaughter. But a police detective wanted to know more — he wanted to know why.

Thomas McClellan had told Detective Charles Buckland that he spent part of the day arguing with Victoria King — his stepdaughter Luna Younger's mother — whom he had married about three months earlier.

He'd told Buckland that he was at home with Luna while King was at work, and that he was taking a nap in the bedroom when Luna knocked on the door sometime around 5 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2016.

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The interview, recorded when McClellan turned himself in hours after the girl's burned body was found by firefighters inside a Holt, Mich., apartment, was played Thursday afternoon during McClellan's murder trial in Ingham County's (Mich.) 30th Circuit Court.

"What was so awful about Luna today that you had to kill her," Buckland asked.

There was silence.

"I don't wanna guess something, Tom. I wanna hear it from you," said the 22-year veteran of the Ingham County Sheriff's Office.

After another long silence. The detective asked again.

"What'd she do, Tom?"

Finally, McClellan responded: "I told her it wasn't dinner time."

McClellan, a 25-year-old Holt resident, then described in bits and pieces what happened.

The girl entered his room to say she was hungry, McClellan said.

He tried to shoo her out of the room. But Luna instead plopped down on the floor, he said. McClellan pushed her a little, nudging her toward the door, but Luna resisted. 

"It tipped me over the edge," McClellan said. "She gave me more attitude."

He grabbed the kindergartner by the shoulder and pulled her onto the floor of his bedroom. Then he sat atop her torso and used a pocket knife to stab her in the chest numerous times.

"What'd she do when you stabbed her," the detective asked.

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"She cried, and she coughed," McClellan responded. "Not very long."

McClellan later covered Luna's body with blankets and set them on fire, prosecutors said, in an attempt to destroy the evidence of his crime.

Arguments and testimony in McClellan's three-day trial wrapped up Thursday afternoon. He faces charges of open murder, first-degree child abuse and first-degree arson. A verdict is expected Friday.

Between the confession and voluminous physical evidence, his attorney, Patrick Crowley, all but admitted that McClellan is guilty of second-degree murder and arson.

"I find myself in a difficult position as an attorney before you today," he told Judge Joyce Draganchuk. "I really am not going to take a position with regard to second-degree murder or arson. I believe the evidence stands for what it is."

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Rather, Crowley and Assistant Ingham County Prosecutor Elizabeth Allen mostly spent their closing arguments trying to convince Draganchuck of the degree to which McClellan is guilty.

Draganchuk alone will determine McClellan's guilt, because Crowley moved before the trial to request a bench trial instead of trial by jury.

The killing should qualify as first-degree murder, Allen said, because McClellan had time to think before stabbing Luna. 

A medical examiner previously testified the girl died from between five and nine stab wounds to the chest.

After the stabbing, Allen noted, McClellan "did not run out of his room bloody, scared or panicked."

Nor did he call 911, she said.

Instead, McClellan took a shower, packed a bag and lit the girl's body on fire, she said. Then he discarded his cellphone, withdrew money from an ATM and bought a new phone before checking into a local motel.

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But Crowley painted his client's behavior in a different light, characterizing McClellan's actions as "inefficient," "panicked" and "haphazard."

He pointed out that McClellan drove all over the Lansing, Mich., region while stopping at the bank, Best Buy and McDonald's. When he checked into a local motel, he used his real name and identification, Crowley noted.

"It is not automatic that the killing of a child is first-degree murder," he said. 

The distinction between first- and second-degree murder is important for McClellan. A conviction on the latter would give him a chance at parole, whereas first-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence.

He also could face up to life in prison on both the child abuse and arson charges.

Follow Christopher Haxel on Twitter: @ChrisHaxel