BATAVIA, Ohio — A man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the shooting deaths of his three young sons in their Ohio home last year.
A Clermont County judge has issued a verdict Chad Doerman33, was sentenced Friday to three consecutive life sentences after pleading guilty to aggravated murder. He was also sentenced to an additional 16 years for two counts of aggravated assault for the injuries to his ex-wife and stepdaughter.
District Attorney Mark Tekulve had originally vowed to seek the death penalty for the June 15, 2023, killings of Clayton Doerman, 7, Hunter Doerman, 4, and Chase Doerman, 3, in Monroe Township, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) west of Columbus.
But on Friday he cited the trauma that surviving family members “experienced that day and continue to experience every day.”
“My job, as I saw it this week, was to relieve them of that additional torment,” he told reporters on Friday.
Prosecutors previously said that Doerman, who was arrested after being found sitting on a stoop near the home, admitted to planning the killings and chasing one of the boys into a field after the child tried to flee. Defense attorneys had argued that he struggled with serious mental illness.
Laura Doerman, the children’s mother and the suspect’s ex-wife, wept as the prosecutor read a statement from her in court in which she said her life had been “torn away from me and destroyed.”
“I would do anything to push them on the swing, cover them one more time and hear their little ways of ‘I love you,'” she said. “… I have anger, frustration and so much sadness. Sadness will never go away because it’s all the love left and no place to go.”
In another statement issued by prosecutors after the sentencing, she said she “completely agrees” with the resolution of the case.
“No punishment will ever bring my boys back,” she wrote. “The assurance that he will spend the rest of his life behind bars is the best thing for my family.”
The prosecutor said he plans to reveal more details about the case at a news conference Monday. Laura Doerman thanked prosecutors and first responders and asked for privacy, saying she and the family “grieve every day” for the boys. But she also asked that people remember the children as they were before the events of that day.
“Remember them as the three little boys who loved to fish, go karting and swimming,” she said. “Remember them as the little boys who were always at the baseball field or running around outside. Remember them as the boys who loved to have fun and were inseparable.”