Shanteari Weems, James Weems Jr.
Shanteari Weems is opening up about her decision to shoot her former husband James Weems Jr. overallegations he had sexually abused children at her daycare center.
Weems, 50, who pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and carrying a pistol without a license and has since been sentenced to four years in jail, told WUSA9 in anew interviewthat she “snapped.”
When asked if she’s remorseful, the daycare owner said she’s sorry for her actions but will not apologize to her husband. “I will apologize when he apologizes to those children,” she said.
James, who retired from the Baltimore police force in 2005, worked as a bus driver at the daycare for two years. Shanteari’s attorney, Tony Garcia,previously arguedthat she shot her husband in self defense when he advanced toward her in a threatening manner during the argument.
Two guns and a notebook were then recovered from the room, and the notebook allegedly contained a makeshift will and Shanteari’s written plans to shoot James — where she reportedly wrote that her goal was to “paralyze” him, not kill him.
After Superior Court Judge Michael O’Keefe handed her a four-year sentence — which was twice what prosecutors recommended in a plea deal, per WUSA9 — Shanteari said she was “emotional” in her reaction.
“Despite my surroundings, I’m doing OK,” Shanteari told the outlet. “I have a lot of supporters and people who uplift me and help me survive.”
While Asst. U.S. Attorney La Vater Massie-Banks said police told Shanteari that her husband was under investigation days before the shooting and that her daycare would be shut down during the proceedings, Shanteari said police were vague. “The only person I had to find out information from was my husband,” she said. “And he kept saying he didn’t do it … I did believe him.”
Eventually, a mother of a child from her daycare alleged James was responsible. Shanteari told WUSA9 that when she saw the “pain in [the mother’s] face,” she “knew she was not lying.”
“I felt like the blood had just drained out of my body because … it was my husband,” Shanteari said. “He was supposed to help me protect these children. He always told me he was my protector. So when I heard this, I just felt like – I just felt like my world had ended.”
“We were both supposed to be on this crusade of saving children, and child molestation is something that we had talked about all the time, how horrible it was,” she added.
“I think about that child all the time. I think about all the children, all the time.”
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Prosecutors allege she texted her business partner that she would “kill [James] and then myself.” James was then shot in the neck and leg, and the judge called the shooting “deliberate cruelty.”
“She was confronted with a situation where a child that she had watched take their first steps, go to the first day of [school], learn how to ride a bike, grow up in front of them – she had this parent come to her and broke her whole world,” Shanteari’s lawyer Tony Garcia told the outlet.
“Never have I been hit like that in trial without warning or without some sort of courtesy that the judge disagreed with the agreement between the parties,” the lawyer added.
Shanteari also shared that she contemplated killing herself after she “trusted the wrong person.” She filed for divorce in February.
“I’m definitely going to make a great batch of lemonade from these lemons I’ve been dealt,” she said, adding that she plans to start a nonprofit upon her release.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
source: people.com
