Inside a courtroom in Baltimore, Robert Sewell situated himself to the left of his mother, who was wearing a pink prison jumpsuit, handcuffs and shackles.

Sewell then reflected on the tragedy that brought them together.

On Jan. 25, Sewell’s daughter, E’vaa, had been staying with his mother, Alethea Mitchell, at her home on Ingleside Avenue in Northwest Baltimore, when she left at about 7:45 a.m. to go to work.

At about 2 p.m., Mitchell texted her granddaughter, “Hey you OK. Are you hungry?” But she did not respond.

That’s because the girl found a pink 9 mm handgun that had been left unsecured in the house and fatally shot herself in the head.

When Mitchell returned home at about 3 p.m., she discovered her granddaughter on the bed in a pool of blood, called 911 and put the gun in a clear tote bag under a pile of clothes.

She was 10.

“E’vaa was my first daughter, my first kid,” Sewell said on Monday in the Elijah E. Cummings Courthouse. “Every day, I wake up as a father, I feel like I failed.”

Describing the case as a “terrible tragedy,” Baltimore Circuit Judge Lynn Stewart Mays sentenced Mitchell after she pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and illegal possession of a regulated firearm to serve nine years in prison. She must also spend five years on supervised probation.

“I think you all agree this was an accident, that no one meant for this to happen,” Mays said. “A horrible, tragic, life-ending accident, but an accident nonetheless.”

Mays said the case highlights the unimaginable danger that comes with keeping a gun at home.

She implored family members to seek professional counseling to navigate their grief.

As part of a plea agreement, Mitchell faced between seven and 10 years in prison.

Assistant State’s Attorney Jesse Halvorsen, chief of the Special Victims Unit in the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office, pushed for a prison sentence of 10 years.

“A grandmother’s house should’ve been a safe place for a child,” Halvorsen said. “This is a horrible tragedy, but it just didn’t have to happen.”

Meanwhile, Natalie Finegar, Mitchell’s attorney, urged the judge to hand down a sentence of seven years in prison.

When Finegar first met her client at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, she said, “I have to accept responsibility for what I’ve done.”

“She will always accept responsibility,” Finegar said. “She acknowledges that she deserves to be punished.”

Mitchell, 51, worked seven days a week at Misha House LLC and TruHealing Baltimore in the addiction recovery field. She was studying to become a counselor, Finegar said.

More than two dozen people sat in support of Mitchell in the courtroom gallery. Four of them spoke on her behalf, describing her as a strong, resilient and reliable woman of integrity who has demonstrated growth.

“She’s a great person,” said one of her friends, Tamara Toney-McCall, executive director of Oasis Outreach Productivity Systems, a conflict management and leadership organization. “She knows how to love people, because she has an understanding heart.”

When she was given the opportunity to address the court, Mitchell said she takes full responsibility for her actions.

Mitchell said she knows that it might take a lifetime to heal her family.

She said she’s committed to spending a lifetime to make that happen.