Richard Lyons Found Guilty In 2008 Murder Of Daughter Mya

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jan 17, 2014 10:20PM

It took a jury less than two hours Friday to convict Richard Lyons in the 2008 murder of his 9-year-old daughter Mya in a case that made national headlines.

Mya Lyons was found stabbed to death outside her father's apartment on the South side in July 2008. Police did not consider RIchard Lyons a person of interest in his daughters murder for over two years before he was arrested and charged with her murder in January 2011. Between Mya's murder and the arrest Richard Lyons submitted to a polygraph and police confiscated the van in which he drove Mya to the hospital. Prosecutors laid out the case against Richard Lyons: that he struck his daughter in the head with a lockbox and stabbed her 30 times before he drove her to the hospital, and that blood splatter in the van and on Richard Lyons indicated Mya was murdered inside.

The testimony of a blood splatter witness was a point of contention between prosecutors and Lyons defense attorney, Assistant Public Defender Christopher Anderson. Anderson, who theorized during the trial that Mya Lyons was murdered by a burglar, said blood spatter witness Rod Englert "kept charging" prosecutors for his testimony, believed to be $100,000. Prosecutors Fabio Valentini and Maria McCarthy said during their closing arguments that it was Richard Lyons who was trying to craft a "farce."

Mya's mother, Ericka Barnes, broke down in tears outside the courtroom after the verdict was read. Richard Lyons slowly stood and kept his eyes close as the verdict was read. Mya's uncle, Derrick, was in disbelief after the verdict was reached and called Englert's testimony "just a theory and not real science."