Nickellia Allen

T’Airicka Allen's Story

UPDATE: Parole has been denied for child murderer Nickellia Allen. Allen will not have another hearing until July 2028. Thank you to everyone who submitted a petition to oppose this child killer’s parole. Rest In Peace T’Airicka Allen. You will never be forgotten.

A Little Girl Is Found Dead

On April 6, 1994, Nickellia Allen called 911 and reported her two-year-old daughter, T’Airicka, was unconscious. Allen was at her cousin’s home babysitting her cousin’s children as well as her own. When paramedics arrived on the scene to try to resuscitate T’Airicka, they discovered that she had been dead for some time. They were unable to put a breathing tube down T’Airicka’s throat due to rigor mortis.

Paramedics immediately brought T’Airicka to the Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead on arrival. Upon further examination, the doctors discovered some horrific and shocking evidence refuting Nickiella Allen’s story about how she found her daughter unresponsive that evening.

Shocking Autopsy Revelations

Upon examination of T’Airicka’s body, Summit County Coroner William Cox discovered multiple 2nd and 3rd degree burns on her lower half, including her buttocks, groin and the back of her legs. According to the coroner’s report, the burn pattern was typical of a child who had been placed into a tub of scalding hot water. The coroner also determined that she was strangled with a thin cord, something around the size of a telephone cord or clothesline. In addition, T’Airicka suffered four fractured ribs that were in various states of healing.

Nickellia Allen was taken into custody by police under suspicion of child abuse and the murder of her two-year old daughter. Allen told authorities that the burns were a week old and had occurred when her five-year old daughter ran the bath too hot while T’Airicka was bathing. According to the coroner’s office however, that did not hold with the age of the burn injuries, which seemed to be 24 to 48 hours old.

Nickellia Allen was charged with murder, as well as two counts of child endangering. The first child endangering count was for violating a duty of care because Allen did not take T’Airicka to the hospital after she was burned. The second charge was for torturing T’Airicka.

History of Abuse

At the time of T’Airicka’s death, Nickellia was no stranger to Children’s Services. Authorities learned that Allen had previously been charged with, and pled guilty to, child endangering regarding an injury she had caused to her five-year-old daughter four months earlier.

Allen had been beating her five-year-old daughter to discipline her when the girl fell and cut her chin on the table in front of them. Instead of taking her child to the hospital, Allen elected to sew up the injury using a plain needle and thread. At first, Allen lied to authorities about sewing up her daughter’s injury, but eventually admitted the truth to a social worker. When asked why she did not take her to the hospital, Allen stated that she did not want Children’s Services to watch her or to take her daughters away from her.

Allen was sentenced to 30 days in jail for the abuse, but the sentence was suspended and she was instead given six months of probation. Despite the advice of Children’s Services, the Juvenile Court returned all three children to Allen following the sentencing.

A few months later, Allen, who was a senior in high school at the time that T’Airicka was murdered, was expelled from her school when she brought a stun gun to class with her.

An Abusive Mother’s Murder Trial

At Nickellia Allen’s trial, jurors were shown graphic slides of the burn injuries on her daughter’s lower half. A family friend was brought in to testify, stating that, when she had visited the home where the Allens were staying during the week leading up to T’Airicka’s murder, she heard T’Airicka in a bedroom shouting, and Nickellia told her to go back to bed or she would be whipped again.

While testifying in her own defense, Allen acknowledged that “everyone was watching” her due to her previous violent episode directed at her eldest daughter, but that she did not kill T’Airicka. She stated that she had fed her 2- and 5-year old daughters around 9:30 PM on April 5th, and the girls went to bed around 11 PM. She then woke them up around 3:30 AM to straighten their bedcovers. According to Allen, it was around 11 AM the next morning that her 5-year old came to tell her that T’Airicka did not wake up or respond when she had pulled her sister’s hair.

Allen said she went into the bedroom to tickle her daughter to wake her. “I was tickling her on her sides,” said Allen. “She didn’t move. I just thought she was in a deep sleep so I tickled her on her other side. I was calling her name and shaking her on the shoulder, and she still didn’t move.” Allen continued, “I thought she was playing. I turned her over and the whole side of her face was blue. I touched her face. Her face didn’t move. I lifted up her shirt and put my ear to her chest but I didn’t hear nothing. I still didn’t feel nothing.”

Allen testified that T’Airicka’s burns were from a bath where the hot water was turned on partway through. She claimed that the injury was about a week old, and looked like a sunburn at the time. She also said that she had wrapped the bleeding burns herself with bandages. Counter to her claims, County Coroner Cox stated that the burn pattern was not consistent with a child who was already in or climbed into a bathtub, instead indicating that the child had been lowered into the scalding hot water intentionally.

Dr. Cox had a very different story based on the evidence. He stated it wasn’t the burns or infection from those injuries that killed T’Airicka, but the cord-like object around the neck that did so. There were fine lines on her neck and back that showed where the object had been tightened enough to restrict her windpipe. According to Cox, T’Airicka would have become unconscious and silent after only a few seconds, and likely was strangled around four total minutes before she died.

Police reports presented to the jurors indicated that Allen called 911 to summon an ambulance for her daughter around noon on April 6th, 1994. However, evidence showed that T’Airicka had not been breathing for between 8 and 12 hours before paramedics were summoned. Cox said that he used the contents of the girl’s stomach and how well they were digested to determine the time of death. This was corroborated by the fact rigor mortis had already set in on her little body.

Assistant County Prosecutor Judy Bandy cross-examined Allen in court that day, and Allen admitted that she had been taking parenting classes since she was in 9th grade, shortly after she had given birth to her first daughter. Despite this, Bandy used Allen’s actions during her oldest daughter’s abuse and injuries to show what kind of mother she truly was, indicating that she is willing to beat her children and then lie to authorities just to avoid trouble. When the defense claimed that there were no witnesses to prove that Allen had abused and murdered her daughter, Bandy said “T’Airicka’s body has been telling you what happened to her.”

A Child Killer Gets Life

Based on overwhelming evidence, a jury found Nickellia Allen guilty of murder and two counts of child endangering.

Summit County Common Pleas Judge Maureen O’Connor sentenced Allen to 15 years to life in prison for murder, as well as 5 to 15 years for torture and one and a half years for child endangering. Judge O’Connor stated, “T’Airicka suffered most of her life. She suffered at the hands of an abusive mother. Quite frankly, I have difficulty using the word ‘mother’ to refer to you, because you are the opposite of what God ever intended a mother to be.”

Judge O’Connor elected to have Allen’s sentences served consecutively (back to back) rather than concurrently (at the same time) in an attempt to keep Allen from hurting another child. Allen was also sentenced to an additional six months for violating her parole on the charges she received because of the abuse to her oldest daughter.

Poor Prison Conduct

Allen’s prison conduct has been far from ideal. She has received 10 disciplinary tickets for actions such as being disrespectful to prison officers, being out of place and having consensual sex with a fellow inmate. She has completed some institutional programming, but has not shown remorse for her actions. The parole board found that she is likely to offend again when she was considered for parole in 2009, and gave her a continuation of her sentence for an additional 10 years as a result.

No Parole

Nickellia Allen is a violent and abusive child murderer who shows no remorse for beating, torturing and murdering her own baby. Based on her previous abuse charges, her horrific crimes against T’Airicka and her poor prison behavior, we believe Nickellia has proven that she will offend again if she is released on parole.

Allowing Nickellia Allen to rejoin society would demean the abuse that she put daughter through and would disrespect T’Airicka’s suffering. In addition, releasing Nickellia Allen would not further the interest of justice and would pose an immeasurable risk to the community by placing any children Allen would come into contact with in severe danger. To protect society we urge the Ohio Parole Board to deny parole for Nickellia Allen and give her the maximum ten-year continuance at all future parole hearings until she serves her full life sentence in prison.