On Thursday, 18 July 2024, Kandie Alisha Meinhart of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in a plea agreement pleaded guilty to third degree murder in connection with the death of her infant daughter, Li’Aziah Thomas, and was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison. Meinhart had previously professed innocence in the matter.
Approximately two months after Li’Aziah’s death on or about 20 January 2021, Kandie Meinhart went to the studio of the Steve Wilkos Show to take a polygraph “test” to clear her name from suspicion. The show’s polygraph operator for this episode, who was not named, was likely either the disgraced Daniel Ribacoff or his daughter, Lisa. (Sometime around October 2021, the Steve Wilkos Show scrubbed Daniel Ribacoff from its website following the publication of racist text messages he sent, but continued to use the services of Lisa Ribacoff, who has not appeared on-camera.)
Meinhart was asked the following two relevant questions:
- Beside CPR injuries, did you cause any of those injuries to your daughter that caused her death?
- Do you know for sure who caused the injuries to your daughter, leading to her death?
She answered no to both questions, and Steve Wilkos announced the results, as Li’Aziah’s father, Anthony Thomas, Jr. watched by video link:
The results came back the same to those two questions, and it came back that Kandie told the truth.
The episode, titled, “Mother Accused of Beating Her Baby to Death” aired as Season 14, Episode 120 on 23 May 2021.
A month later, on 28 June 2021, Kandie Meinhart and Maurice Eugene Davis were charged with first degree murder in connection with Li’Aziah’s death. As reported by Mensah M. Dean for the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The mother of an 18-month-old girl beaten to death in her family’s squalid Chester apartment was charged with first-degree murder and related crimes Tuesday, along with her boyfriend, who faces the same charges, authorities said.
The arrests of Kandie A. Meinhart and Maurice Eugene Davis come more than five months after the January death of Li’Aziah Thomas, and a month after Meinhart appeared on the nationally televised “Steve Wilkos Show” to profess her innocence. During the show, Wilkos told the audience Meinhart had passed a polygraph.
Meinhart, 31, and Davis, 29, face charges of first- and third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, conspiracy, and related crimes.
Both are being held without bail at the Delaware County Prison.
Regarding Meinhart’s guilty plea and sentencing, see Vinny Vella’s report, “A Chester woman was sentenced to decades in prison for killing her infant daughter” in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The case against Meinhart was Docket Number CP-23_CR-0004560-2021 in the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
Some time after Meinhart’s arrest, but in any event no later than 21 September 2021, the Steve Wilkos Show removed a 10-minute excerpt of Meinhart’s episode from its YouTube channel. However, AntiPolygraph.org has preserved a copy of the video and is making it available here for public discussion purposes:
As previously noted on AntiPolygraph.org, Jesse Wayne Perkins, a previous Steve Wilkos Show guest (Season 12, Episode 43), passed a polygraph about the death of a child on the show but later pleaded guilty to killing the child. In that case, too, the Steve Wilkos Show scrubbed video of the episode from its YouTube account.