Baby-Killer Back in Court, Gets Shot at Shorter Sentence

JOLIET, IL — An Elwood man sentenced to life for killing his girlfriend’s baby was back in court Wednesday and will get a shot at serving a shorter stretch in prison.

Lee Ponshe, 32, was sent to prison on a mandatory life sentence for murdering 18-month-old Halli Burton in April 2009. But the appellate court ruled the mandatory life sentencing law has been invalidated and sent the case back to Will County.

The statute had required a life sentence for murder when the victim was younger than 12.

Ponshe had been doing his time at Menard Correctional Center, home of disgraced former Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson, cold-blooded killer Chris Vaughn, and Nightmare on Hickory Street murderers Josh Miner and Adam Landerman, but is now back in the Will County jail.

Ponshe was found guilty in December 2012 of murdering young Halli. Ponshe and Halli’s mother, Jessie Evans, met online in January 2009. Within four months, they were engaged to marry and she moved along with her daughter from Downstate White Hall to Elwood so they could all live together.

Halli didn’t last three days there before Ponshe killed her by hitting her in the head.

The night before Halli died, Ponshe and Evans stayed up drinking vodka and lemonade while they watched a movie. The child appeared fine the next day but that evening stopped breathing. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

An autopsy revealed that Halli died of brain trauma. There were bruises to her face, forehead and left ear, and a cut to her lip.

When he was questioned by detectives, Ponshe told them that the night before she died, Halli had been crying for hours and he went in to comfort her about every 15 minutes.

About 3:30 a.m., he said he rubbed Halli’s head but when she would not fall asleep, he “smacked her.”

Ponshe broke down crying and admitted to detectives that he must have hit the child twice, and demonstrated how by rapping his knuckles against a table.

During Ponshe’s trial, prosecutors played a recording of a telephone conversation he had with his father from the jail. He admitted to drinking heavily with Evans and also said he was “on a bunch of f---ing Xanax” and Vicodin.

Ponshe was scheduled to be resentenced in April.