West Virginia mother killed her 4-year-old daughter, but a vicious motive surfaced after her husband called her ‘evil’ in court

Rebakah Weikle received two life sentences on April 30, following her guilty plea for the first-degree murder of her 4-year-old daughter, Haley Weikle, and child abuse resulting in death. According to True Crime News, she will be eligible for parole after 30 years, marking the end of a legal process that exposed the horrific details of a crime committed in 2022.

The events leading up to the tragedy are deeply unsettling. Prosecutors revealed that Weikle spent months harboring resentment and jealousy toward her daughter. By June 2022, she began researching stab wounds and torso lacerations on her phone. On July 11, 2022, she followed through on these thoughts by telling her daughter it was time for bed.

She entered the bedroom with a knife, stabbing the child and slitting her throat while she was face-down on the bed. She even used a blanket or pillow to muffle the sounds of the attack. In a move that feels truly cold, Weikle went to her own bedroom immediately after the killing to wake her husband, Rusty Weikle, for sex.

It is hard to process what happened in that bedroom

She continued to use her phone throughout the night and early morning hours to search for information on fingerprints and throat-cutting. When her husband asked her to check on their daughter the next morning, she simply told him the child was dead. The investigation later uncovered that Weikle had falsely accused her husband of killing their daughter to cover up sexual abuse. She eventually admitted that these claims were a lie.

Summers County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Lefler noted the calculated nature of these accusations. He said, “She made allegations that I think makes it easier to believe that someone would kill their daughter probably because there was something more sinister going on. I think that’s easier to digest than a mother killing her 4-year-old daughter in her bed, in her own bedroom, because she was resented and developed a jealousy of her daughter.”

Such false claims mirror a mother convicted of murdering her daughter after she tried to suggest another child was to blame for the injuries. Rusty Weikle, who pleaded guilty to child abuse and neglect charges, received a sentence of home confinement and probation. While authorities do not believe he was involved in the actual murder, Lefler pointed out that he failed to intervene despite clear warning signs.

Lefler stated, “He did not take action to protect that family from her. Now, is there a belief that he knew that one night she was gonna get a knife and cut the baby’s throat? I don’t think that, but there was red flags that something bad was coming.” Weikle told investigators he stayed with his wife because he did not want to break up their family. During the court proceedings, Rusty Weikle did not hold back his feelings about his wife’s actions.

He said, “I want everybody to know how evil the person that she is and what all she has done. She killed a 4-year-old baby, my baby. She was jealous that I was paying attention to her, doing what I was supposed to do, watching out for her. I was trying to keep her safe.” The couple’s other two children have since been adopted. It is a relief to know those children are in a new environment, far removed from the circumstances that led to this tragedy.

The case serves as a grim reminder of how resentment can fester into something beyond comprehension.