Darci Driggs and 2-year-old Zaeyana Janae Driggs-Threats

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Deshawn Threats had nothing to say as he was sentenced to life for the beating death of his 2-year-old daughter, but he smiled and shook his head as the dead child’s mother called him a monster and sociopath.

“You ripped my baby away from me in the worst way imaginable,” said Darci Driggs, the mother of Zaeyana, who was killed on Aug. 14, 2013, by her father.

Threats was in Kent County Circuit Court on Tuesday, July 1, where he was sentenced to life in prison without parole after he was convicted of felony murder and child abuse last month. Authorities testified at trial he beat the girl to the point where her internal organs exploded.

Driggs called on the father of three of her children to come clean and admit to his actions in order to bring peace to himself and justice to the little girl.

“You beat my daughter like she was a grown man,” Driggs said to the shackled Threats, who stood a few feet away. “My daughter died scared, alone and in terrible pain, probably calling out for her mother.”

Driggs referred to Threats as a sociopath and a monster. When Threats heard that, he looked down, smiled and shook his head.

Judge Donald Johnston offered Threats the chance to make a statement, but he declined.

After the sentencing hearing, Driggs said she lost custody of Threat’s namesake son born in March of 2013 as authorities investigated the case. Driggs gave birth Jan. 27 to another child as Threats was in jail awaiting trial.

Driggs said she now has custody of all her children.

Threats and Driggs were living together in a Fourth Street NW on Aug 13 when Driggs went to work and left Threats to care for the two children. The next day, Threats carried the toddler’s lifeless body from a bedroom and set her on the floor before Driggs.

A medical examiner determined the toddler’s stomach essentially exploded and her pancreas was severed because of blunt force trauma.

“I have to take every day as it comes,” Driggs said. “I have to be here for all my children.”

Driggs hugged Effie Threats, her children’s grandmother and mother of the man who killed her daughter.

“Nobody wins,” Effie Threats said as she embraced Driggs.

E-mail Barton Deiters: bdeiters@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/GRPBarton or Facebook at facebook.com/bartondeiters.5