Photo by Gregory Bacon Sean Thomas is pictured walking to his seat in Chautauqua County Court before being sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 8 month old Aniyah Turk.

MAYVILLE, N.Y. – Two years ago Sean Thomas was watching his girlfriend’s 8-month-old daughter Aniyah Turk when he apparently became frustrated and ended up strangling the infant to death.

Prosecutors don’t see him as someone who is “purely evil” but rather as someone who didn’t have the proper maturity to care for such a young child and lost control of his actions.

As a result, the 28-year-old Jamestown resident pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced by County Court Judge David Foley to 20 years in state prison, plus five years post-supervision.

Thomas was originally charged with second-degree murder, in which he could have gotten 25 years to life.

District Attorney Jason Schmidt noted his office offered the plea agreement. “There was some effort there to try to bring it down to 15 years and we said no,” he said.

Schmidt said it appears that Thomas recognizes what he did was wrong. “He came in and accepted responsibility,” he said.

Schmidt believes Thomas should have never been asked to watch the infant. “This is one of those cases where he clearly has psychological issues. He’s more child-like and immature and the wrong person to be taking care of an eight month old child. I truly believe he snapped in some fashion and didn’t know what he was doing,” he said.

Schmidt declined to criticize the decision for allowing Thomas to watch Aniyah. “I don’t think it would be right for me to comment, given the tragedy here,” he said.

During the court appearance, Thomas spoke to the court before the sentencing was handed down. “It was a pure reaction on my part and it was my reaction. I put myself in that position. Ultimately at the end of the day I shouldn’t have been the one caring for her but I was. I want to say that it was my fault. I take responsibility. I should not have reacted the way I did,” he said.

Before announcing the sentencing, Foley agreed that Thomas should have never been left alone watching the child. “I think this was a situation that unfortunately got out of hand, that you either on a maturity level or a psychological level weren’t capable of managing. That’s unfortunate, but there are consequences for actions,” he said.

According to Schmidt, while watching Aniyah, Thomas appears to have covered her mouth and later wrapped a phone cord around the child’s neck, until she died.

In a separate matter, the sentencing of Matthew Nuttall has been delayed until May. Nuttall, a Jamestown resident, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the 2024 death of 16-month-old Isaac Benton and was originally scheduled to be sentenced Monday.