A 26-year-old man was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 2017 beating death of his girlfriend’s toddler daughter.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Stephen Wallace handed down the sentence following an emotionally charged hearing which included tearful speeches from family and the revelation of jailhouse phone calls where the defendant, after the conviction, mocked the judge who would decide his fate.

Fredrick Earl Williams was initially charged with capital murder in the Sept. 26, 2017 death of Ta’Leah Nicole Alexander-Burke who was 17 months old.

She died from blunt force trauma to the heart, liver, and lungs. She also had 41 bruises, a broken arm, and a number of other internal injuries.

A jury in February, after nearly two weeks of trial and less than three hours of deliberations, convicted Williams on the lesser charge of felony murder, with the underlying felony being child abuse.

The case was prosecuted by Jefferson County deputy district attorneys Tiffany Ould, Jennifer Wilson, and Nick Taggart.

Williams was represented by the Jefferson County Public Defender’s Office.

Ta’Leah’s mother, Jackquese Jackson, told officers she left the child at home with Williams, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, while she did errands. When she arrived home, she found Ta’Leah naked, bruised, and unresponsive.

They called 911 but decided to drive the child to the hospital.

Ould said Williams, then 19, refused to accompany Jackson to the hospital, and instead armed himself with a gun and fled the scene. He turned himself in hours later.

Shortly after leaving, Jackson ran into police and EMTs, who were unable to revive the child. Ta’Leah was pronounced dead soon after at Children’s of Alabama.

Williams told Jackson that the child had choked on a piece of candy. At trial, the defense claimed that the child’s injuries were due to CPR.

Ta’Leah’s mother, aunt, grandmother, and a cousin pleaded for a lengthy sentence for Williams. Prosecutors were seeking 40 years.

“Do you know how hard it was to wake up every day and know that I will never have the opportunity to see my child ever again? She was, at the time, my youngest baby. Not even old enough to talk,’’ Jackson said in her victim impact statement.

“There was nothing she could have done to deserve the fate she had to endure,’’ she said.

Jackson spoke of all the life events she will miss – kindergarten graduation, school dances, prom, marriage, babies.

“I will never be able to experience her growing up,’’ she said.

Ta’Leah’s sister, who was 3 at the time, was taken by DHR on the day Ta’Leah died seven years ago and the family has not seen her since. She has since been adopted through a closed adoption.

“He really destroyed our family,’’ said Ta’Leah’s aunt, Tonya Robinson.

Williams’ family said Williams was only trying to help Ta’Leah that day and maintained that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. He was raised to be respectful, loving, and caring and is a good father to his own children, two daughters under the age of 10. His girlfriend is also pregnant with his third child.

He had no prior criminal history.

“The only thing Fred was doing that day was trying to help a baby in distress, the best way he knew how,’’ his grandmother said.

“This situation has ruined my family,’’ said Kimberly Williams, the defendant’s mother. “Everybody involved in this situation is hurting.”

Williams spoke briefly.

“I apologize to Ta’Leah’s family,’’ he said. “I’ve been going through this for seven years and they have as well. I had no ill intentions that day.”

Williams’ defense team asked for a sentence of 20 years with five to serve.

“The jury found that he did not have the intent to kill,’’ said Public Defender Brock Brett.

Brett talked about the issue of mass incarceration in Alabama and said the majority of inmates are young Black men like Williams, which she said has a negative impact on the Black community.

She also said Williams was at the age when the crime was committed that his frontal lobe, especially the prefrontal cortex, wasn’t fully mature, which happens around age 25. The prefrontal cortex of the front lobe allows someone to process the pros and cons of a decision before it is made.

“This was a tragic chaotic event that happened very quickly,” she said.

She said a split sentence would “accomplish the goals of sentencing while recognizing this crime for what it was – a tragic, impulsive decision by a 19-year-old.”

Prosecutor Ould disagreed.

“This is not a racial issue. The negative impact is a child was brutally murdered,’’ she said. “He took a life, and he deserves to be punished.”

Ould talked about what the “poor child went through in her last minutes and hours of her life,” which included two tears to her heart, ripped lungs, tears to her liver, multiple rib fractures, a lacerated spleen and the 41 bruises, “head to toe, back to front.”

“This child suffered at the hands of this defendant to such a degree that I don’t think we’ll ever truly, truly know,” Ould said.

“It is horrific,’’ she said. “I will never be able to unhear the screams of Miss Jackson as she held her baby lifeless and limp.”

Ould said Williams has not taken responsibility for his actions and has shown no remorse.

While Williams was out on bond, he was charged with domestic violence, which was dismissed because the victim wouldn’t cooperate, and he repeatedly violated his conditions of electronic monitoring to the point that his bond was revoked earlier this year.

“We even found out he had been talking with and sleeping with a witness and texted her about her testimony,’’ Ould said.

His behavior, she said, showed overall lack of respect for the process.

Ould then talked about his jail phone calls with family, which were monitored.

“On the day he was convicted, he starts talking about what he regrets,’’ Ould said. “After all was said and done, the only thing he regrets is that he didn’t sleep with some chick…that was his regret, not that, ‘I beat this poor baby to death.’”

“It boggles the mind,’’ she said.

Following his conviction, Ould said, Williams was recorded saying he didn’t expect Judge Wallace to give him much jail time.

“I don’t think he (Judge Wallace) is going to do too much. You feel me?,’’ Williams said. “It’s going to be two years or four or some shit like that. I think shit’s going to work out for real.”

“There are three judges that you don’t want but there’s two more you want,’’ he said. “They call him Walking Wallace. I’m in a good courtroom…stupid ass judge.”

Wallace told the courtroom that hearing the 911 call from Ta’Leah’s mother is something he’ll never forget.

“This was a difficult case,’’ Wallace said. “I do have to respect the jury’s verdict and the verdict was felony murder, they found that while he was acquitted with the intentional killing of the child, that he was culpable for intentional conduct that led to the death of the child, and I can’t ignore that.

“It’s a tragic thing and I feel for the victim’s family, and I feel for the defendant’s family,’’ the judge said. “Both have been affected by this and I wish there was something I could do to make them feel whole or better. I don’t know that will ever happen.”

He then issued Williams’ 25-years sentence.

Both families were emotional throughout Monday’s sentencing and an argument erupted once it ended but the families were quickly separated.

Courtroom deputies accompanied Williams’ family all the way outside to the street until they got into their cars and left.

Ta’Leah’s aunt said the family is not happy with the 25-year sentence.

“We understand you have to be fair with sentencing but that’s just not enough for the trauma he caused,’’ Robinson said. “We are not satisfied. We are not happy with what happened today.”