Nov 16, 2004 By Jennifer Harr 4 min read

When people ask Kimberly Nichelson how she handles the death of her 13-year-old daughter, Danielle Nicole McManus, she said she puts up a brave front. It’s when she’s alone that Nichelson lets go, clinging to her daughter’s memory and thinking about where McManus’ life would be headed were it not cut short on May 3, 2003.

Nichelson shared her thoughts in a victim impact statement she read Monday at the sentencing for Brian Keith Hays, the man convicted of killing McManus.

Hays, 21, of Normalville was convicted of second-degree murder, statutory sexual assault and abuse of a corpse earlier this month. The murder charge carries with it a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Fayette County Judge Steve P. Leskinen sentenced Hays to an additional five to 10 years in prison for statutory sexual assault and one to two years for abuse of a corpse.

After a weeklong trial, Hays was convicted of killing McManus and burning her body. McManus’ stepfather, Robert Nichelson, found her remains in a burnt van in a junkyard adjacent to the family’s Clinton Road home.

Her body was wedged between the door and seat. That position stopped fire from getting to her lower torso, where police were able to get seminal fluid from inside her. Most of McManus’ body, including her head, forearms and hands and calves and feet, were completely incinerated.

Before police charged Hays, they requested DNA samples from more than a dozen area men. When Hays’ DNA matched what they found in McManus, he told police that they had sex, and smoked crack cocaine. McManus went into convulsions and died, he told authorities. He testified at his trial that he and McManus had sex, but claimed police suggested he say she died from smoking crack because it would make her death accidental.

He told jurors that he smoked crack alone outside the home, and away from McManus, and saw a white car drive up to their home. Hours later, Hays claimed, McManus was gone.

Trooper John Marshall, the lead investigator in the case, theorized that Hays had a forced sexual encounter with McManus at their home, and possibly killed her then, and carried her body to the van.

Tearfully, Kimberly Nichelson told Hays that although he asked for her forgiveness in McManus’ death, she cannot bring herself to grant him that. She also told Hays, her nephew and her husband’s stepson, that she hoped his sentencing would begin to bring their family closure.

“I didn’t only lose my baby girl that day, I lost my spirit and my nephew,” she said.

Before he sentenced Hays, Leskinen called what he did “horrendous” and noted that Hays showed “a complete lack of remorse.”

“Mr. Hays killed his cousin, and in a sense, his stepsister,” Leskinen said.

While Leskinen said he found credible Hays’ testimony that he was under the influence of crack cocaine when McManus died, the jurist said it did little to mitigate what happened.

“Burning the body of the deceased was only the first step in covering up his crime,” Leskinen said.

In giving four statements to police after McManus’ death, Leskinen noted that Hays told authorities only what he had to.

Because McManus body was so badly burned, forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht testified at trial that he could not determine what caused her death. Although Hays’ attorney, Mary Campbell Spegar, suggested that McManus could have suffered from an aneurysm, Wecht said he could not determine if that was the case because so much of her body was burned.

He also testified that tests performed after McManus’ death showed no signs of cocaine or derivatives of the drug in her body, in contradiction to what Hays told police.

Hays opted to say nothing during the sentencing hearing and did not comment to reporters after his sentencing.