The grandmother of Christopher Fox III and Gihanna Fox condemned their mother before sentencing.
LAS VEGAS — The grandmother of two young children drowned in separate bathtubs faced their mother in court before a judge sentenced the woman to life in prison without parole.
Shawna Fox’s statement gave the sentencing of Jovan Trevino, 38, its sharpest family moment. Trevino had pleaded guilty to murdering her children, 4-year-old Christopher Fox III and 1-year-old Gihanna Fox, inside a Henderson home in 2021. The plea agreement meant there would be no death penalty trial and no parole possibility. The hearing before Clark County District Judge Carli Kierny became the last public stage for a case that had already established guilt, leaving relatives, prosecutors, the defense and the judge to speak about loss, blame and punishment.
Fox told Trevino she had “failed miserably” as a mother. She said she hoped Trevino would see the children’s faces every time she closed her eyes and never forgive herself for stealing their futures. The words focused the hearing on what had been taken from the children and from the family around them. Christopher and Gihanna were not discussed only as counts in a murder case. They were described as children whose lives ended before school years, birthdays and ordinary family milestones. The grandmother’s statement made clear that the sentencing did not erase the damage left behind.
Trevino also spoke, but from a different place in the courtroom and with a different purpose. She apologized to the judge and acknowledged that the children died by her actions. “On Monday, July 19, 2021, my babies’ precious, innocent lives were taken at the hands of their mommy,” Trevino said. She told Kierny she had not been in her right mind and had been in the darkest place she had ever experienced. Her voice was described as emotional, but the apology came after a guilty plea and after years of court proceedings in which the facts of the deaths had already been laid out.
The facts remained central. Prosecutors said Trevino first brought Christopher into a bathroom and convinced him to get into the bathtub by giving him glasses and telling him they would help him see underwater. Once the 4-year-old was lying on his stomach, she held him under the water with her hand and leg for about three to four minutes until he drowned, according to the state’s account. Prosecutors said she then went into another bathroom in the home and drowned Gihanna in a separate tub. The state treated the second drowning as proof that Trevino had time to stop after killing her son but instead killed her daughter.
Chief Deputy District Attorney John Giordani called the crimes “unforgivable” during the sentencing hearing. He said the case was among the most extreme of its kind he had seen in 15 years. His argument centered on the children’s ages, the separate locations in the home and the deliberate steps prosecutors said Trevino took. Those details also shaped why prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty before the plea. The agreement avoided a capital trial, but it still required Trevino to accept convictions for two counts of first-degree murder and a sentence of life in prison without any chance of parole.
The defense offered another part of the record, pointing to Trevino’s mental and emotional condition before the killings. Defense attorney Ryan Bashor said Trevino had been dealing with extreme life stressors and a deteriorating relationship with the children’s father. Christopher Fox, the father of the two children, had previously testified that Trevino expressed suicidal thoughts in the days before the drownings. He said she felt she could not leave the children behind if she was not there. Those statements became part of the court’s understanding of the period before July 19, 2021, but they did not reduce the sentence Trevino faced after the plea.
The investigation also included Trevino’s actions after the children died. Authorities said she wrote a suicide note and fled to Arizona. She was later taken into custody at a medical center in Bullhead City after staff were told about the killings. That moment helped connect the deaths in the Henderson home to the law enforcement response that followed. The case then returned to Nevada, where Trevino was charged in Clark County. For years, the proceedings carried the possibility of a capital trial. By 2026, the case had narrowed to a guilty plea, a fixed prison term and a hearing for final statements.
Kierny’s remarks brought the legal proceeding to its close. The judge said she could sense Trevino’s sadness, but she described life without parole as the only proper resolution. “I know that as you live out the rest of your life in a jail cell, you’ll probably see them at night, you’ll think of them,” Kierny said. “That’s really the only tribute left that you can give them at this point.” Before ending the hearing, the judge added, “I will remember your case forever.” Her statement tied the punishment to memory, not rehabilitation or eventual release.
The sentencing also highlighted the contrast between Trevino’s former work and the crimes she admitted. She had worked as a family services assistant for the Clark County Department of Family Services, a role tied to systems meant to protect children and families. Prosecutors did not frame that job as the cause of the killings, but it added context to why the case drew attention beyond the courtroom. The victims were her own children, killed in their home. The court record leaves the case as both a family tragedy and a criminal judgment, with the state’s strongest non-death punishment now imposed.
Jovan Trevino will spend the rest of her life in a Nevada state prison, with no parole hearing available. The criminal case has ended with two first-degree murder convictions. For the children’s relatives, the next milestone is not another court date, but life after a final sentence that confirmed Trevino will not be released.
Author note: Last updated June 15, 2026.