A Merrillville woman got a split 3-year sentence Friday after fatally stabbing her then-unborn son’s father.
Alexis Sanders, 26, pleaded guilty Jan. 13 to reckless homicide, a Level 5 felony, in the Oct. 19, 2022 death of Dominique Davis, 30, of Gary. She faced 1-to-6 years. The plea deal was filed on the morning her murder trial was set to start.
Her term is one year in prison, one year in Lake County Community Corrections and one year on probation.
She testified Friday that Davis had been abusive toward her — pushing her the weekend before during an argument. At the time, she was seven months pregnant.
Both Davis’ family and Deputy Prosecutor Tara Villarreal rejected her testimony — characterizing it as an opportunistic lie. The prosecutor said she agreed the couple had a “very toxic relationship.”
Gary Police found Davis stabbed in the torso when they responded Oct. 19, 2022 to the 2200 block of Tennessee Street. His mother Melanie Paul later told cops he was planning to break up with her. He was pronounced dead at 11:12 a.m. Oct. 19, 2022 at Methodist Hospital.
On the stand Friday, Sanders told her lawyer Scott King that she was driving to school for a medical assistant program that morning. Davis texted her, calling her an expletive. She told him to leave her food stamp card on the table. He asked for a paternity test for the baby.
“Watch this,” he said, giving her the impression he would wreck her great-grandmother’s Gary home, where they lived.
When she returned home, she said Davis continued the argument. Sanders said threatened Davis, saying she was trying “not to put her hands on him,” then added it wasn’t his baby, which she testified was a lie to provoke him.
Davis had her in a chokehold, she said. During a struggle, she feared something happened to the baby, grabbed a knife and stabbed him once. They “both fell”, Davis ran out the door and she looked for a phone to call 911, she said.
“You stabbed me!” Davis said as he begged Sanders to call 911, according to the affidavit.
“Please … I’ll tell them somebody else did it … I’m gonna die. Help please, I can’t breathe … why, Alexis? Why?”
After his death, Sanders searched on the internet for several things on Oct. 19 to 20, including “murder defense lawyer Merrillville,” records show.
Sanders testified Friday she did lie to the police, blaming the stabbing on a fictional Tinder hookup, “Dre” — or Andre.
“I was scared,” she said. “I didn’t want (Davis) to go to jail.”
When she went to the hospital, staff checked her out, undergoing tests to make sure the baby was ok. By then, she learned Davis was dead.
“I was screaming,” she said.
At the police station, she continued to lie and said ‘Dre’ did it.
Villarreal zeroed in on her testimony, saying Sanders had never told it to police or prosecutors during the 2 1/2-year case. You lied to the cops multiple times?, Villareal asked.
“I did,” Sanders responded.
In one text to Davis, Sanders told him “(you’ll) lose something just as close.” That’s not a threat, she asked.
“I don’t know, I was just talking,” Sanders replied.
“You seem to do a lot,” Villarreal responded. “How many times did you practice this testimony?”
“I never practiced this testimony,” she said.
At the police station, why would she need to protect Davis if he was dead? Why not show police pictures of her bruises?
“You just want to pick and choose when you’re telling the truth,” Villarreal said.
Davis’ loved ones denied he was abusive, saying he was respectful and a provider.
Khadijah Davis, his daughter’s mother, said he was never abusive in their 4-year relationship. Their daughter London, then 4, lost her “best friend” and was only left with a stuffed animal with his voice recorded.
“A man can be a victim, too, at the hands of a woman,” she said.
Melanie Paul, Davis’ mother, testified that she begged him to end the relationship. Her son said he had to do it “strategically” and “safe.” When she later got the call from the hospital, “I knew she had done something,” she said. She asked for a maximum sentence.
King said Sanders took the plea “for her child.”
She faced up to 65 years at a murder trial. She stabbed Davis once, “because she couldn’t feel her baby,” he said. “There was not an intent to kill.”
He asked for her to avoid prison.
Villarreal said she was “dishonest” and “untruthful.” She “made up an entire story on the spot” to the cops. She knew they were out looking for another man when she did it. The knife was put in a plastic bag police found later after a search warrant.
King interjected, saying under the law, defendants don’t have to tell the police anything.
Villarreal countered her honesty would have been helpful. Essentially, in her testimony, she had to own up to words captured on a Ring video that contradicted what she originally told police.
She argued that Sanders was more likely the “original aggressor,” asking for six years in prison.
If they went to trial, Villarreal said she “risked” Sanders testifying “to whatever she wanted” and prosecutors would have to deal with it “on the fly.”
Sanders said she never wanted her son to grow up without a father.
“I didn’t have time to think that day,” she said later.