Life for death: Judge sentences Mims without possibility of parole

DALTON, Ga. - When the judge told her Friday she would spend the rest of her life in prison, Skyy Raven Marie Mims stood straight, still, emotionless.

But behind her, a woman wailed - Mims' cousin, Candace Patterson. Nearby, a man watched officers lead his 22-year-old daughter out of the Whitfield County courtroom. Mario Mims pulled off his glasses, bowed his head and rested his face in his hands.

Minutes earlier, he had taken the stand and told Superior Court Judge Jack Partain about his family history. His grandmother spent most of her life in a hospital, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. His father and two of his cousins met the same fate.

Mario Mims also testified that his ex-wife, Skyy's mother, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

After high school, Skyy showed signs of mental illness, too. He noticed she was acting strange around Thanksgiving of 2013, about three months before police say she stabbed and suffocated 37-year-old Dahyabhai Kalidas Chaudhari in the back room of a convenience store.

Concerned, Mario Mims checked her into a hospital, but she left on her own a couple of weeks later. Then she stole a car and drove to Atlanta in pursuit of a career as a rapper, or a dancer, or a fashion designer, or a model, or maybe all of the above.

"She kind of slipped out of our hands," Mario Mims said Friday. "We couldn't grab her, touch her, nothin'."

Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen Skyy Mims stands and looks around the courtroom during a recess Wednesday, April 29, 2015.

A display with flowers, a collection jar and a photo of Dahyabhai Kalidas Chaudmari, the clerk murdered at Kanku's convenience, sits near the entrance of Kanku's in Dalton, Ga., on Wednesday, March 12, 2014. Skyy Raven Marie Mims is accused of killing Chaudmari.

On a night in March 2014, police say, Mims slipped into the Kanku's Express on Airport Road in Dalton, where Chaudhari worked the graveyard shift as a clerk. He had moved to the United States from India by himself less than a year earlier. Customers said he was friendly, but quiet.

The store's security camera footage shows a woman with a concealed face chasing Chaudhari to a back room, stabbing him twice with a fillet knife, pressing her hands onto his mouth and nose. Then the woman spread red duct tape across his eyes and stole a stack of scratch-off lottery tickets.

Investigators said they found Mims' cellphone at the crime scene. Two days later, after they tracked her down at an acquaintance's house in Cartersville, Ga., they said they found in her car, a knife and a pair of gloves with Chaudhari's DNA on them.

A jury convicted her seven weeks ago of 11 charges, including murder and armed robbery. Her attorney, Carla Marable, asked Partain on Friday to sentence Mims to life with the possibility of parole. If granted, she would be eligible to leave prison in 2045.

Marable argued that her client doesn't understand what she did. A psychologist diagnosed Mims with bipolar disorder after the killing, and Marable believes she might have a more severe, undiagnosed mental illness.

After graduating high school, Mims enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit. But she only lasted a semester. Her family said she began acting strangely.

She stared into the distance, unblinking, for minutes at a time. She whispered things people didn't understand. She said enemies wanted to hurt her, or that she was an alien. She said she was love. She said people were trying to kill love.

Marable argued that psychologists can treat Mims in prison. She can get better. She can be redeemed.

"To give life without parole would be to just throw her away," Marable told Partain.

But Conasauga Judicial Circuit District Attorney Bert Poston pointed out that he had already been lenient: He could have pursued the death penalty but chose not to because of Mims' mental illness and her lack of a criminal record before the murder arrest.

Giving Mims the possibility of parole, Poston said, would be the second time her punishment was reduced for the same reason. He said her crime was methodical, vicious, senseless. He reminded Partain that Mims had laughed several times during her trial.

"The defendant has shown zero remorse," Poston said. "She has shown zero acceptance of what she did. We don't think she should ever be free again."

Partain agreed with Poston, sentencing Mims to life without parole.

After the officers led Mims away, after prosecutors and investigators and interested Dalton residents left the courtroom, her family members stood up. Patterson said the family will appeal the sentence.

"They've just thrown her away," she said. "And they don't care. Skyy is a peaceful person."

Mario Mims walked out of the room. He hoped he could talk to his daughter at the Whitfield County Jail later that afternoon before he had to go back to Detroit.

His daughter is a killer, but he wanted people to remember something else, too: His daughter is sick.

"If you don't help those with mental illness," he said, "this is going to keep happening."

Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at tjett@times freepress.com or at 423-757-6476.