GALVESTON, Texas – It was a case that brought nation-wide attention, a 17-month-old baby girl that was thrown off a hotel balcony by her mother in 2024. Now, the child’s mother has been found guilty of capital murder.
It took a Galveston County jury less than one hour to find Channel Jasmine Yonko guilty of capital murder in the death of her daughter, 17-month-old Hannah Yonko. The conviction carries an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole.
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The crime happened on Oct. 23, 2024, when Galveston police officers responded to calls of a baby being found in the street, bleeding from a head wound and with stab wounds to her back. The baby, identified as Hannah Yonko, was transported to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston by ambulance and pronounced dead.
Police discovered the baby had been thrown off a nearby hotel balcony at 59th St. and Seawall Blvd. Officers were unable to locate a parent or caregiver for the child at the scene, but eventually identified Channel Yonko as the child’s mother. She was later indicted for capital murder.
Her trial started on Mar. 2 with prosecutors Casey Kirst and Michael D. Rinehart showing the jury evidence that Yonko visited Galveston with her sister, sister’s friend, and her daughter for a week before the murder.
The jury heard testimony from a court appointed psychiatrist that Yonko admitted to stabbing Hannah three times in the back, at a nearby condo, with one stab wound fracturing a rib. The jury also saw a bloody pillow and towel recovered from Yonko’s hotel room. Prosecutors also showed evidence that the safety features of the car seat used for Hannah had been removed. The following day, after a disagreement with her sister’s friend, Yonko and her sister booked a room at Beach Front Palms Hotel. The jury saw surveillance footage from the hotel of Yonko pushing Hannah in a stroller around the various floors of the hotel before taking an elevator to the top floor. The jury watched as the video showed Yonko lift Hannah from her stroller, swaddle her in two blankets, and then heave her over the edge of the balcony. Video from a different angle showed Hannah as she fell four stories to the pavement below.
Yonko’s defense attorney conceded in closing arguments that Yonko threw her baby over the balcony, but argued that she was not in her right mind at the time, and thus was legally insane because she did not know the difference between right and wrong. The State rebutted this insanity defense through video footage, text messages, surveillance, witness accounts, and expert testimony.
The jury was shown video evidence that Yonko immediately fled the scene of the crime, hid evidence, and attempted to call for an Uber to flee from Galveston within four minutes of murdering her daughter, revealing that at the time of the murder she was aware of what she had done and that it was wrong.
Kirst argued in closing that there was one person in the world that was supposed to love Hannah unconditionally and that instead, that person took Hannah’s life.