Convicted Murderer Gets Life Without Parole In Toddler's Beating Death

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A Woodstock resident will spend the rest of his natural life in prison for the murder of a 17-month-old Cherokee County toddler.

Michael John Naples on Thursday was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 30 years to run consecutively in the October 2012 death of Kaylee Johnson, the Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office said.

Naples, 33, received his sentence from Cherokee County Superior Court Judge Ellen McElyea.

A Cherokee County jury in May convicted Naples of felony murder, cruelty to children in the first degree, aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated assault and cruelty to children in the second degree following a two-week trial in April.

“No punishment for this defendant will suffice to restore the family who lost Kaylee Johnson,” said Cherokee County District Attorney Shannon Wallace. “Their loss is immeasurable. This defendant had a history of brutality towards women and children and in this instance, he showed no mercy whatsoever to a toddler, as he battered her to death. Because of this sentence Michael Naples will never hurt another child or wife or girlfriend. It is our hope that this will help the family and the community heal from the tragic loss of this precious, innocent child.”

See also:

• Mom Charged in Baby’s Death Pleads Guilty To Lesser Offenses
• Bartow Mother Arrested in Child’s Death
• Mother, Boyfriend Indicted in Baby Death

Naples and Kaylee’s mother, Jaimie Beck, were arrested in arrested and charged in September 2013 with the murder of Kaylee, who was found unresponsive in October 2012 at a home in unincorporated Woodstock.

In November 2014, Beck pleaded guilty to cruelty to children in the second degree and making false statements, ”admitting that she had been criminally negligent in giving the defendant, whom she was dating, access to her child after the child began having injuries while in the defendant’s care,” the district attorney’s office said.

Beck is currently serving a 15-year sentence, five of which will be served in prison for her role in the incident.

Beck testified at Naples’ trial that she did not observe Naples inflicting the fatal injuries on her child, but should not have returned to his home on the day of the murder with her children after an extended fight that day.

Beck told the court Naples physically abused her earlier on the day of the murder, and implored “her to stay with him that night, if (she) loved him,” the DA’s office added.

Numerous friends and family members observed Kaylee at a festival hours before her death and noted that she appeared healthy and was able to run and walk.

Evidence at trial suggested that the child was killed sometime between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. Oct. 14, when paramedics were called to the defendant’s home by Beck, who discovered the child at the bottom of a flight of stairs in Naples’ basement.

Numerous medical experts, including hospital physicians and the medical examiner, testified at trial that the child’s numerous injuries, including multiple injuries to the head, a large skull fracture, subdural bleeding, a broken leg and a healing rib fracture “were medically inconsistent with a fall down stairs,” the district attorney’s office stated.

Kaylee, who never regained consciousness, succumbed to severe brain trauma just two days later at the hospital. Wallace and Chief Assistant Rachelle Carnesale tried the case, arguing at trial that Naples “either threw the child down the stairs at the conclusion of the beating or placed her there to mislead her mother and first responders.”

At the sentencing hearing, multiple family members testified, attesting to the damage the family sustained from the loss of Kaylee Johnson and referencing Naples’ history of violence against female partners and children that was revealed at trial.

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Photo credits: Cherokee Sheriff’s Office/Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office