Adelaide-born death row mother Lisa Cunningham: I’m innocent of killing daughter, have been set up
ADELAIDE expat Lisa Cunningham, who is facing death row in the US, has declared her innocence and claims she was charged with her stepdaughter’s murder as retribution for threatening to sue authorities.
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ADELAIDE expat Lisa Cunningham, who is facing death row in the US, has declared her innocence and claims she was charged with her stepdaughter’s murder as retribution for threatening to sue authorities.
“The rage I feel for what happened to our girl is crippling,” she wrote in a series of messages to her family.
“I’m not staying silent under the fear they will put me in jail and kill me because that’s what they are threatening to do. Kill me for this.”
Cunningham, 43, could become the first Australian woman to be sentenced to death if she is found guilty of murdering her seven-year-old stepdaughter, Sanaa, on February 12 last year.
Her husband, former robbery squad detective Germayne Cunningham, 39, is also charged with killing his mentally-ill daughter in Phoenix, Arizona.
They both made a brief appearance in a Phoenix court overnight.
But Lisa Cunningham, a mother of four, has insisted to family, including those in South Australia, they are innocent and the victims of an official set-up.
They have insisted they desperately tried to help the girl after consulting numerous doctors and considered various treatments, including cannabis therapy.
In highly emotional Facebook messages to her family, Cunningham — who was born in Adelaide and raised in Mannum — reveals her fury over the young girl’s death.
“In spite of the judgment we have endured, the injustice, the loss of everything we had, our children, we wake up every day and we can’t bring her back,” she wrote in one of the messages, provided to The Advertiser by her family.
“I can’t describe the trauma of this event to anyone and I will never completely recover from watching this happen.”
In the July 14 messages, sent while the couple was on bail, Cunningham vows to fight her charges and return to Australia with their children once freed.
She alleges authorities tampered with her phone, fabricated evidence and “threatened” to place their other children in care.
Cunningham, who remains an Australian citizen, further claims her arrest was in retribution for threatening to sue over Sanaa’s death.
“Now I have to fight every day to get my life and my family back. And I will,” she wrote.
“I’m so grateful for the love. We will be home again one day, showing all the kiddies our old stomping grounds and watching our grandkids running around.
“I think about it every day. I’m not giving up. How could my kids be taken away without evidence?”
In December last year, a US grand jury ordered the couple stand trial charged with one count each of first-degree murder and 10 counts each of child abuse.
The couple, who married in 2011, pleaded not guilty in January. A fortnight before her plea, Mrs Cunningham tried to take her life.
The couple, who lived in Goodyear in the desert city’s middle-class western suburbs, remain in protective custody as they await a trial not expected until mid-2020.
Their family has appealed to the Federal Government to help fund their legal battle, under a special fund for Australians facing the death penalty overseas.
The Advertiser understands no application has been filed. It is believed one will be filed shortly.
Cunningham’s cousin Donna Roesler, 45, of Mannum, said her family failed to bring Mrs Cunningham’s other children, who are now in foster care, back to Australia.
Ms Roesler said her cousin was now fit and ready to win her freedom. “She’s more determined to fight now than before she went to jail,” Ms Roesler told The Advertiser.
“You have to remember, not only is she fighting the possible death penalty but her kids have been taken away.”
The Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) first investigated the couple in March 2016.
The Cunningham family say Sanaa suffered from schizophrenia and other mental health problems that caused her to lash out. They deny their stepdaughter or her siblings — none of whom can be named for legal reasons — were abused or neglected.
An autopsy found Sanaa died from sepsis, a foot abscess, multiple skin ulcerations and an unspecified schizophrenia spectrum disorder.
The Maricopa Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the manner of death was “undetermined” and how the injuries were inflicted remains unknown.
In her messages, Cunningham provides extensive detail about the events leading up to Sanaa’s death including how she cut her foot on a patio door blade in November 2016.
Instead, the stepmother blames antipsychotic drug Risperdal for her death. “When she saw the (doctor) three weeks before she died she was considered to be perfectly healthy,” she wrote.
“We wanted to put Sanaa on CBD (cannabis) therapy. We were opposed to antipsychotic drugs.
“As a result, we were threatened by the department of child safety that if we did not comply with the drug order all of our kids would be taken into state custody for medical neglect.”
Cunningham said DCS officers told her to video or photograph unusual behaviour.
She claims evidence — which a judge has ordered remain confidential — is now being used against her and her children removed because text messages allegedly detailing plans for Sanaa’s murder were discovered on her phone.
While much of the case remains secret, Maricopa County Superior Court has heard the couple restrained Sanaa with cable ties before she died.
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