Woman gets life sentence in granddaughter's death

MOUNT CLEMENS (AP) -- A Macomb County woman has been found guilty but mentally ill in the slaying of her 4-year-old granddaughter who was strangled two years ago in their Warren home. The Macomb Daily in Mount Clemens reports that a jury rejected 54-year-old Dawn Yorke's insanity defense last Friday in Macomb County Circuit Court. Yorke will be sentenced Jan. 10 to life in prison without parole. She will receive psychological care in prison. Linda Steele was killed in June 2009. Yorke lived in the home with the girl's parents. Assistant Macomb prosecutor William Cataldo said "there was really no upside" to the case because Linda's mother "lost her own daughter and now has lost her mother." Yorke had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Published: Tue, Nov 22, 2011