A shattered family, a traumatic past: Judge sentences grandmother in accidental shooting of 2-year-old girl

It was a case that left a family in shambles, a prosecutor in near silence, and a veteran defense attorney at her wits end.

Twanda Harmon, 54, was set to be sentenced Friday morning for her role in the accidental shooting death of her 2-year-old granddaughter. It was a warm afternoon last July when Harmon’s 14-year-old grandson, who has an intellectual disability, found her loaded gun in an upstairs drawer and fired it, striking his cousin, Diora Porter-Brown, in the back of the head.

Diora’s mother ran outside and into the streets of Brewerytown, carrying her bleeding child in her arms, pleading for help. She and her toddler were rushed to Temple University Hospital, but Diora’s injuries were severe. She died at 12:36 p.m.

“When I was at the hospital and my daughter was pronounced dead, all I wanted was to be held by my mom,” Dafeara Porter said Friday.

But her mother was in police custody. She was later charged and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of children. She has been held at the County Correctional Facility since that day.

On Friday morning, Porter asked Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott for mercy for her mother.

“I am hurt more than anything,” she said through tears. “I really need my mom.”

McDermott cut her off. She had heard enough, she said, and ordered Harmon be sentenced to nine to 23 months in jail, plus two years probation, and said she should be released Friday on time served.

“There are not two sides in this case,” the judge said.

Only family.

Assistant District Attorney Alison Neveil did not object.

Harmon’s family erupted in cheers. They collapsed into themselves, crying words of thanks and prayers. They said they never wanted Harmon to spend a day in jail, and do not blame her for what happened.

“She’s suffered enough,” said one family member.

Harmon, a mother of five, was raised in Philadelphia. The wounds in her life run deep. The youngest of three children, she was sexually abused as a child, and dropped out of school in 10th grade.

Her mother died of a heart attack when Harmon was just 18, and four years later, her father was killed in a homicide. Harmon found his body.

She has endured physical and emotional abuse through her life. She has been raped and shot at, and suffers from PTSD and depression.

The trauma of her life, she said, led her to hide various weapons through her house — guns, knives, bats.

“I decided no one was ever going to rape me again,” she told a psychological examiner, according to McDermott.

It was one of those guns that her grandson found.

David “Smiley” Porter, Harmon’s husband of 36 years, had been in hospice care for the last month. All she kept saying in the weeks leading up to Friday, the family said, was to tell him to “hold on. Hold on.”

He died Thursday.

Porter said the district attorney’s office only contacted her once throughout the case — on the day before the sentencing. She refused to speak with them, she said, because she was grieving the death of her father, and was upset with how the case had been handled.

Harmon’s defense attorney, Mary Maran, was exasperated.

“I wish everything had been different for this family,” she told the judge. “They are as good and deserving as any family in the city of Philadelphia.”

It was all she could bring herself to say.

The family left the courthouse quietly Friday morning, walking out into the wind and rain. They would be able to pick up Harmon from the jail that afternoon. They would tell her that her husband was gone. They would lay him to rest. And they would take her to see her granddaughter’s grave for the first time.

All together, they would finally be able to grieve. To heal — as much as one ever could.