A second Logan County jury found Cierra Coker guilty after her first murder trial ended in a mistrial in 2025.

LINCOLN, Ill. — A Logan County jury has convicted 24-year-old Cierra Coker of first-degree murder in the 2022 death of 19-month-old Sophia Davis, bringing a verdict in a case that had already gone through one full trial without a unanimous decision. Jurors returned guilty verdicts July 30 after a nine-day retrial centered on what happened while Sophia was in Coker’s care at the Lincoln apartment Coker shared with the toddler’s father.

The conviction gives prosecutors the result they did not obtain in August 2025, when a previous jury deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial. In the second trial, prosecutors again argued that Sophia suffered fatal head trauma while Coker was caring for her and two other young children as Sophia’s father worked. The defense challenged that account and presented evidence intended to support other possible explanations for the child’s condition. This time, however, jurors accepted the state’s case and found Coker guilty on two first-degree murder counts based on aggravated battery of a child. Her sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 6.

The state’s case was built in part around the sequence described by Sophia’s older sister, Paige Davis, who was 9 at the time and was inside the apartment. Paige testified that Sophia bit Coker’s finger and that Coker then took the toddler into another room, where Sophia began crying. When Coker returned with her, Paige said, Sophia’s mouth was bleeding and the toddler was barely moving. Prosecutors argued that the brief period out of Paige’s view was when the fatal injuries were inflicted. The testimony placed Coker with Sophia immediately before the child’s condition dramatically worsened.

Jurors also heard the emergency call made after Sophia became unresponsive. Coker told a dispatcher that the child was barely breathing, that her mouth was bleeding and that her head was tilted in a way that made Coker fear she was dying. Cory Sizemore, an emergency medical technician who responded to the apartment, testified that Sophia appeared lifeless and that her lips were blue. Emergency crews took her first to a hospital in Lincoln before she was transferred by air to HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Springfield for more intensive treatment.

Sophia’s mother, Casandra Needham, described a separate exchange with Coker as the emergency developed. Needham testified that Coker had told her the toddler seemed sick. During a video call, Needham could see blood around Sophia’s mouth and believed the child was not breathing. Needham said she told Coker to begin CPR, but Coker replied that she was not comfortable doing it. Needham also testified that when she asked for the address of the apartment so she could get help there, the call ended. Earlier reporting from 2022 said Needham eventually sought emergency assistance herself.

Medical evidence became one of the central disputes at trial. Dr. Giovanna Caprirolo, who treated Sophia at St. John’s, testified that doctors became concerned the toddler had gone into cardiac arrest because of non-accidental trauma. Testing did not find a bacterial or viral infection. The Sangamon County coroner later determined that Sophia died from traumatic brain injury caused by blunt-force injuries to the head. Contemporary reporting and the 2026 verdict announcement place Sophia’s death on Feb. 8, 2022, two days after the medical emergency. The medical findings were critical to prosecutors’ effort to rule out natural illness as the cause.

The defense attacked that conclusion rather than conceding that Coker caused the injuries. Defense attorney Mark Wykoff told jurors at the beginning of the retrial that competing medical testimony would give them sharply different views of Sophia’s death. Evidence also established that Sophia had developmental issues, including an autism diagnosis and delays involving speech and mobility. Needham testified that the toddler had been teething and had a slight fever before the emergency and had a small bruise after bumping her head on a picnic table. Prosecutors maintained that those circumstances did not explain the severe traumatic brain injury identified after she was hospitalized.

The case also carried a history from the month before Sophia died. Court records show prosecutors separately charged Coker with aggravated battery over injuries Sophia suffered in early January 2022 while Coker was also acting as a caregiver. A 2026 Illinois appellate order described evidence that Sophia was taken for medical care after that earlier visit and was diagnosed with a possible broken arm and injuries to different areas of her face. The order also noted conflicting medical testimony about whether an arm fracture was present. Those earlier allegations had been part of the cases tried together when the first jury deadlocked in 2025.

The appellate record became important after that mistrial for a different reason. Coker asked the trial court to reconsider the conditions under which she was being held. Prosecutors sought her continued detention, arguing that the evidence presented during the first trial showed a threat to children that ordinary release conditions could not adequately control. The circuit judge agreed, and the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court upheld the detention order in February 2026. The appeals court emphasized the seriousness of the charged conduct while also acknowledging evidence that Coker had no prior criminal record and had no disciplinary infractions while incarcerated.

At the retrial, the defense also called relatives who described Coker as peaceful and nonviolent around children. That testimony offered jurors a view of her background that contrasted with the prosecution’s description of what happened to Sophia. A separate part of the appellate record said family members and other mothers had described occasions when Coker had cared for children without incident. Prosecutors, however, focused the jury on the physical evidence, Sophia’s medical condition and the testimony about what occurred in the apartment during the final period in which she was conscious and responsive.

The jury’s decision did not adopt every proposition put before it. Local court coverage reported that jurors found Coker guilty under two theories of first-degree murder but did not make the separate finding alleging that the killing was accompanied by exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior indicative of wanton cruelty. That distinction does not erase the murder convictions, but it is part of the verdict and separates the jury’s findings from some of the language prosecutors had used in earlier detention proceedings. The convictions themselves resolved the central question the first jury could not: whether the state had proved Coker criminally responsible for Sophia’s death beyond a reasonable doubt.

After the verdict, Logan County State’s Attorney Bradley Hauge said prosecutors had proved that Sophia did not die from disease or natural causes and praised her older sister for returning to court to testify about events she witnessed as a child. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, whose office assisted the Logan County prosecution, also said the verdict brought accountability while acknowledging that it could not undo the loss to Sophia’s family. Coker remained in custody after the verdict. The next scheduled major proceeding is her Oct. 6 sentencing in Logan County Circuit Court.

Author note: Last updated September 8, 2026.