Phillips sentencing scheduled for December.

Sean Michael Phillips

Phillips sentencing scheduled for December. 

#BabyKate

By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief.

LUDINGTON — The 51st Circuit Court has scheduled the sentencing of Sean Michael Phillips for Friday, December 9, 2016 at 10:30 a.m. at the Mason County Courthouse. Phillips was found guilty of second degree murder, Friday, October 14, by a jury following a three week trial. Phillips faces a maximum of life in prison, with the possibility of parole, for the murder of his 4-month-old daughter, Katherine Shelbie-Elizabeth Phillips, also known as Baby Kate.

Phillips, 26, is currently serving a 10-year-minimum prison sentence for the unlawful imprisonment (kidnapping) of Baby Kate and the new sentence would run concurrent.

Katherine Phillips has not been seen since June 29, 2011, after she was last seen by her mother, Ariel Courtland, in the back of Phillips’s car. Phillips left Courtland’s Tinkham Avenue apartment in Ludington after the two had been arguing, according to testimony of Courtland and witnesses. For the next several hours his whereabouts and activities have never been confirmed. But, when law enforcement officers from Ludington Police Department and Mason County Sheriff’s Office found Phillips at his parents’ home on West Millerton Road in Victory Township, the baby was nowhere to be found; however, Phillips had the baby’s clothes in his pocket and had placed the carseat and diaper bag in the trunk of his car.