An Ohio man charged with shooting and killing his girlfriend in February 2022 was found guilty Thursday on all counts. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Robert Sherman was on trial for shooting and killing his girlfriend Ashley Darrington while their two infant children were present in the home. Sherman was found guilty of aggravated murder, endangering children, domestic violence and other charges.
Judge Cook, who on June 8 convicted Sherman of Darrington’s aggravated murder following a bench trial, sentenced him to an additional 15½ to 19½ years for domestic violence, robbery, felon in possession of a weapon, and a gun specification for the killing.
An additional 360 days for two counts of child endangering was included to be served, by law, concurrently with the other charges.
Those counts arose from the presence in the victim’s apartment of the couple’s two toddler children, ages 1 and 2, who police responding to the scene found on a bed with their mother, who had been shot five times.
Before pronouncing the sentence, Judge Cook recalled body-cam video from an arriving police officer who called the little boy to crawl to him while the officer took care to avoid contaminating a crime scene.
“I watched his [the officer’s] hand shake. I watched him reach out to see if the little girl was still alive,” the judge said before hoping out loud that because of the children’s young ages at the time, there is “not an ounce of that picture that can stay in their heads.”
Jennifer Liptack-Wilson, an assistant Lucas County prosecutor, had recommended Sherman receive maximum sentences for his convictions, which included charges from the day before related to a fight between Sherman and Miss Darrington after which Sherman took the key to her apartment.
Ronnie Wingate, Sherman’s defense lawyer, expressed agreement with most of what Ms. Liptack-Wilson said. He requested the domestic-violence and robbery counts be merged and for a murder sentence less than life without parole on the grounds that during Sherman’s prison time for a previous domestic-violence conviction involving Miss Darrington, he had no access to antipsychotic medication prescribed to him.
Sherman briefly apologized to the court and both Miss Darrington’s family and his own before requesting assignment to a maximum-security prison – rather than supermax – as “my punishment for being in this predicament.”
But Judge Cook said she saw nothing in his actions during the 10 days between Sherman’s prison release and Miss Darrington’s killing to indicate mental illness. Trial evidence showed he accompanied his girlfriend to an Oregon store to buy two guns on his behalf — one of which he later used to kill her — and made sure his broken-down car was repaired.
And when he left her apartment on the night of her shooting, he did so with headlights off.
“You functioned with all logic and calculation as it pertained to you,” the judge told Sherman before remarking that “this is the nightmare” the court community has regarding domestic violence situations in which the relationship continues.
Police were already looking for Sherman because he had posted to Facebook that he possessed guns, Judge Cook noted, but hadn’t gotten to him in time because “the system is not meant or capable of being able to stop a person like you.”
After commending the children’s care to their grandmother, Judge Cook returned her focus to Sherman.
“I don’t see an ounce of remorse in your statement,” she said. “You parsed it as if it all happened to Miss Darrington by somebody else.”
Mr. Wingate said at the proceeding’s conclusion that an appeal will be filed.
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