Philly father sentenced to 10 to 20 years for shooting death of 4-year-old daughter

In simple words, 5-year-old Amisha Phillips described what happened to her younger sister on a tragic afternoon two years ago.

"My father was playing with the gun and he tried to shoot the TV and he shoot Tahirah," Amisha told a Philadelphia Children's Alliance worker during a videotaped interview six days after the shooting.

"I miss her," Amisha said of her younger sister.

Part of that interview — and that of three of her siblings — aired in a Philadelphia courtroom Tuesday as a judge ordered Maurice Phillips to serve 10 to 20 years in state prison for fatally shooting his 4-year-old daughter.

The sentence from Common Pleas Court Judge Diana Anhalt followed a three-hour hearing in which prosecutors argued for a stiffer sentence — up to 25 years in prison — while Phillips' defenders pleaded for a term half as long. In sentencing him, the judge said she found Phillips' actions "so egregious" and didn't believe he got the gun to protect his children, as his lawyers argued, but instead "to feel like a man."

As tragic as the death was, it was compounded by what authorities allege was Phillips' attempt to frame another of his daughters for the April 16, 2016, crime.

Seven children were gathered in the small upstairs bedroom of the family's Kensington home on the 200 block of East Mayfield Street that afternoon, watching SpongeBob SquarePants or sleeping, when Phillips aimed his .45-caliber gun at the television, authorities said. But the gun discharged and the bullet first hit Tahirah in the head before it went through the television and lodged in a back wall.

As the children screamed and cried, Phillips wiped Tahirah's blood on then 5-year-old Amisha's long-sleeved white shirt then punched her in the face when she began crying, authorities said.

After the shooting, Phillips moved Tahirah to another bedroom and didn't call 911. He called his girlfriend, the mother of the seven children who was visiting a neighbor, and told her to come home, investigators said. After she got home, he rode away on his bicycle to try to visit his two sisters before surrendering to police that evening.

In September, Phillips, now 32, pleaded guilty to charges of third-degree murder and related offenses.

His lawyers, public defenders Stephanie Fennell and Francis Carmen, told the judge that Phillips had legally purchased his gun and kept it in the house to protect his family.

The shooting was a "tragic accident," Fennell said. She said Phillips has been "intellectually disabled" all his life with an IQ of 60. He has a "childlike demeanor" and doesn't think like a rational adult, she said.

Assistant District Attorney Kristen Kemp saw things differently. "This is a man who pulled the trigger of a firearm in a room with seven children," she argued. She also said Phillips "tried to set up a 5-year-old child" and showed the judge part of his videotaped interview with homicide detectives in which he at first denied firing the gun.

Phillips, in a soft voice, briefly apologized for the shooting. His other children were not in the courtroom, but his two sisters and three cousins were there to support him.

In addition to the prison term, Anhalt ordered him to serve 20 years of probation upon his release.