By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspapers
ALLEN PARK — A man accused of drowning his two young children last fall awaits sentencing for their deaths.
Steven Lyn Nicholson, of Allen Park, was found guilty Tuesday in a bench trial before Judge Vera Massey Jones of one count of first-degree premeditated murder for the death of 15-month-old Ella Stafford and one count of second-degree murder in the death of 13-month-old Jonathan Sanderlin. He also was found guilty of felony murder and child abuse of Ella.
Both children lived with him, but had different mothers.
Massey said she did not believe Nicholson intended to kill Jonathan, but that the stress of parenthood got to him. She said she believes he then killed Ella to establish an alibi.
Nicholson will be sentenced May 13.
The verdict comes after a three-week trial that featured police video of Nicholson’s interrogation, in which he was often argumentative with officers.
Police arrived shortly after 2 a.m. Oct 19 after Nicholson, then 27, called 911 to report his two children had drowned in the bathtub. He told police then that the children had gotten out of their cribs and turned the water on
themselves while he was asleep.
The Wayne County Medical Examiner’s laboratory determined the children died of drowning, and that the scalding water burned their skin off.
Ella’s mother, Tayler Stafford, 19, shared custody of her daughter with Nicholson and John than’s mother, Sarah McGee, gave full custody of her son to Nicholson before moving to Cadillac.
Nicholson recently had been laid off from his job as a bricklayer. Residents of the Valley Spring Apartments, where he lived, said they had seen him verbally abuse the children in the past.