Mother of 6-year-old who shot first-grade teacher pleads guilty to child neglect

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The mother of a 6-year-old boy who garnered national headlines earlier this year when her son shot his first-grade teacher during class pleaded guilty Tuesday to a single count of felony child neglect.

It was the second time in the past two months that Deja Nicole Taylor entered a guilty plea to charges relating to the Jan. 6 shooting of Richneck Elementary School teacher Abby Zwerner. The shot struck the 25-year-old educator in her hand and chest and left her seriously injured.

In June, Taylor pleaded guilty in federal court to having a firearm while also possessing marijuana and lying on a federal gun background check about her drug use. She’s due to be sentenced in that case Oct. 18. Though the federal charges carry up to 25 years combined, prosecutors have agreed to ask for a term within the federal sentencing guidelines — between 18 months and two years.

The child neglect count Taylor pleaded guilty to on Tuesday carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. In exchange for her plea, prosecutors have agreed to ask for a sentence within the state guidelines — up to six months — but Circuit Judge Christopher Papile has the authority go above the prosecution’s recommendation. Sentencing was set for Oct. 27.

The Newport News commonwealth’s attorney’s office also agreed to drop a separate misdemeanor charge accusing Taylor of recklessly leaving a loaded gun where her son could access it.

While Taylor has long maintained through defense attorney James Ellenson that she kept her 9 mm Taurus semiautomatic handgun secured with a trigger lock and stored on a top shelf in a bedroom closet, a statement of facts entered into evidence Tuesday indicated that wasn’t the case.

The statement said when police were interviewing the boy and his parents after the shooting, Taylor asked him how he got the gun. The boy replied he “stood on a drawer of her dresser, reached into her purse, and took it.”

The boy was sitting at his desk when he suddenly pulled the gun from his front hoodie pocket, pointed it at Zwerner — seated at a reading table less than 10 feet away — and fired a single round.

Officers who responded to the shooting found the boy being restrained by a staff member in his classroom, the statement said. The gun was lying on the floor nearby, with the slide open and additional rounds in itsmagazine. As the officers came into the room, the boy yelled, “(Expletive) you! I shot my teacher,” then broke free from the staff member and punched her in the face, the statement said.

The boy also told police the gun belonged to his mother and that he “stole it because I needed to shoot my teacher,” the statement said.

During her interview with detectives, Taylor told them her son had been diagnosed with obstructive defiance disorder and took medication for it. She said he previously had gone into her purse and took her car keys. She said Child Protective Services responded and created a safety plan requiring her to store her keys in a lockbox rather than her purse. After that, she stored her keys in the lockbox but continued to keep her gun in her purse, she said.

In the weeks leading up to the shooting, the school had required one of the boy’s parents to attend class with him because of his behavior problems. The week that it happened was the first that he was allowed to attend without them.

Two days before the shooting, the boy grabbed Zwerner’s phone from her, smashed it on the ground and said, “I’m never coming back to your room again, you b—-,” according to the statement of facts in the case. He was suspended for one day after that. The day of the shooting was his first day back after the suspension.

At the June hearing in federal court, a statement of facts admitted to by both sides said Taylor was a heavy marijuana user. Federal agents found marijuana in Taylor’s purse, bedrooms at two homes and a trash bag taken from her car, according to the statement.

But when she bought the handgun from a York County gun shop in July 2022, Taylor checked a box on a federal background form that she was not an “unlawful user” of marijuana. Prosecutors said Taylor was a daily marijuana user for 11 years, and admitted that her chronic use of it affected her behavior.

The boy, now 7, is in the custody of his great-grandfather, Calvin Taylor, at his Newport News home. He said in an interview that his great-grandson is thriving, and doing well at a local school that’s not part of the Newport News Public Schools system.