Police filed a murder attempt and serious violence charges against a suspended Pennsylvania magistrate judge who shot her estranged partner in the head while he was sleeping the previous weekend, authorities stated on Thursday.
According to Susquehanna Township Police’s arrest affidavit, tests revealed that Magisterial District Judge Sonya M. McKnight, 57, found a bullet residue on her palms within an hour after Michael McCoy had been shot in the bedroom of his Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, home early on Saturday.
On Friday, McKnight was being held at the Dauphin County Prison, with a $300,000 bail. Court documents did not mention her attorney. A lawyer who once represented her stated he was not representing her at the moment and would not comment. On McKnight’s cell phone, there was a message.
McCoy’s right eye is now blind, according to the authorities.
When McKnight broke their one-year relationship, McCoy, 54, allegedly tried “numerous times” to convince him to move out, according to police reports. When McCoy returned home on Friday, February 9, McKnight was still asleep on the couch in his pajamas. Upon his return from a meal, he informed her that he intended to ask for the assistance of McKnight’s mother to remove her from the house.
“Michael McCoy claimed that it felt like she finally realized that it was over,” according to investigators. At around 11 p.m., he headed for bed.
According to authorities, McCoy woke up with a “severe headache” and wasn’t able to see. When he started to scream, McKnight reportedly asked him, “Mike, what did you do to yourself?” According to the authorities, he had a bullet wound to his right temple that went out of his left temple. McCoy denied shooting himself to the police both there and in the hospital afterward.
After calling 911 just before one in the morning on Saturday, McKnight “may not describe what had occurred and claimed that she fell asleep and heard him yelling,” according to the police statement.