COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Franklin County jury has found Pammy Maye, 51, of Columbus guilty on all five counts in the death of the five-year-old foster son who had been placed in her care, ending a case that began with a pre-dawn 911 call in February 2024 and a statewide search for the boy.
Source: Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney
The verdict was recorded on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, before Judge Mark Serrott. According to the court docket in State of Ohio v. Pammy K. Maye, case 24CR001073, the jury convicted Maye of one count of aggravated murder, three counts of tampering with evidence and one count of abuse of a corpse. WSYX ABC 6 reported that jurors deliberated for about two hours before returning the guilty findings on every count.
What prosecutors told the court about February 2024
The Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney's office laid out the timeline it presented in the case. At about 3:03 a.m. on February 14, 2024, Columbus police received a 911 call from Maye's husband, who said his wife had killed their five-year-old foster son and was fleeing in a silver Jeep Cherokee. He told investigators that at about 3:00 a.m. Maye had come into the bedroom, turned on the lights and told him the boy was no longer alive. He said he searched the house, did not find the child in his bed or anywhere inside, and immediately called 911, according to the prosecutor's office.
An Amber Alert was issued as officers searched for Maye and the boy. About two hours after the 911 call, the Jeep was found abandoned in a parking lot in Brooklyn, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, roughly 140 miles northeast of Columbus. On the evening of February 15, 2024, at about 9:34 p.m., Brooklyn police received a call about a woman wandering around a business on Tiedeman Road. Officers arrived and immediately recognised her as Pammy Maye, the prosecutor's office said.
Maye was taken to a local hospital for medical treatment. The prosecutor's office said she made spontaneous statements to Brooklyn officers that she had killed her son and told them where his body would be found. In the early hours of February 16, after detectives read her her constitutional rights, prosecutors said she confessed to suffocating the boy and to disposing of his body in a sewer drain. At about 1:00 a.m. on February 16, 2024, detectives located the child's body in a sewer in Franklin Township, according to the prosecutor's account. Awaaz Punjab is not naming the child, in line with its policy of never identifying a minor victim.
A trial delayed by competency proceedings
The road to this week's verdict took more than two and a half years. The trial was delayed after Maye was found not competent to stand trial last year and was sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment, WSYX reported. She was found competent to stand trial in April 2026. In a brief court appearance on the Friday before the trial, WKYC reported, Maye was escorted out after about 20 seconds after shouting in the courtroom. Jurors were selected last week, opening statements began on Monday, November 9, and the jury received the case on Tuesday.
The boy and his foster placement sit at the centre of the case's wider significance. WSYX reported that Maye and her husband were given legal custody of the child in May 2023, roughly nine months before his death. Columbus Police Commander Dave Hughes described the verdict as an important step towards justice, while calling for greater responsibility in protecting children, according to reporting on the verdict.
A five-year-old died in the care of the very home the child-protection system had placed him in, an Amber Alert and a two-day search followed, and the accused was later found wandering in a nightgown outside a business more than two hours from home. For Ohio families in the foster system, the verdict closes the criminal question of who was responsible — and opens the harder public question of how warning signs are caught earlier.
What happens next
No sentence has been entered yet. Sentencing is scheduled for November 19, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. in Courtroom 6E of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, 345 South High Street in Columbus, according to hearing notices filed on the court docket. The Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney's office said Maye could be sentenced to up to life in prison without the possibility of early parole. Awaaz Punjab will report the sentence when the court hands it down.