Omarion Wilbourn was just fifteen years old when he murdered a mother of three and sexually assaulted another woman and a teenage girl. According to court documents Omarion Wilbourn reign of terror began with two sexual assaults and would end when he murdered a mother of three inside of her own home. This teen killer would be sentenced to fifty five years in prison plus another forty years for the sexual assaults.
Omarion Wilbourn 2023 Information
Omarion Wilbourn was just sentenced in the last week and it takes some time before he is officially entered into the Indiana department of corrections
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A man previously convicted of raping a woman and teen girl in summer 2017 was sentenced Monday to another 55 years for brutally killing a mother of three young children in her Hammond home.
The sentence means Omarion Wilbourn — who was just 15 years old the summer he committed the crimes — has now been ordered to serve a total of 95 years in prison.
Omarion Wilbourn, 19, of Hammond, already is serving a 40-year sentence for the two rapes in Hammond’s Hessville section. He was charged as an adult in 2018, after a judge waived his cases from Lake Juvenile Court.
A Lake Criminal Court jury convicted Wilbourn in September of murdering Lucia “Lucy” Gonzalez on Aug. 21, 2017, inside her home in 7500 block of Alexander Avenue in Hessville.
Judge Gina Jones said there was nothing she could do to ease the pain Wilbourn’s actions caused.
She urged members of Gonzalez’s and Wilbourn’s families not to “get caught up in the what-ifs of life.”
“Allow yourself some grace and some time to heal from this life-changing event,” the judge said.
Gonzalez’s mother, Cristina Gonzalez, told Wilbourn she watched him in court over the years and never saw him show any regret.
Lucia Gonzalez adored her three children, who often ask their grandmother why their mother has to be an angel instead of being with them, Cristina Gonzalez said.
“I don’t know what to answer, because there is no answer,” she said.
There are no more happy days, no Christmases without tears, Cristina Gonzalez said.
“This is not a good life,” she said.
Lucia Gonzalez’s neighbor, Ashley Adkins, said she will never forget the panic Lucia Gonzalez’s 6-year-old daughter was experiencing the morning the girl knocked on her door holding her younger sibling and asked for help.
The girl had discovered Lucia’s bloodied, bludgeoned and partially clothed body in their dining room and had the wherewithal to gather her siblings and go to Adkins’ home, Lake County Supervisory Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Jatkiewicz said.
Lucia Gonzalez was an amazing, kindhearted person who treated Adkins’ children as her own, Adkins said.
Wilbourn’s crime wasn’t “a bad decision,” as his defense attorney described it, Adkins said.
“That was a horrible, horrific act, and I hope that her beautiful face haunts you for the rest of your life,” she said.
Defense attorney John Maksimovich said Omarion Wilbourn lacked adult guidance as a child. He never knew his biological father because the father was in prison, he said.
“This is all very difficult to even think about,” he said. “The last grade he completed was sixth grade, and he was in special education.”
Wilbourn began using alcohol and drugs at 13, he said.
“He made a series of bad decisions, and here he sits,” Maksimovich said.
Other courts have held that juveniles should not receive the equivalent of a life sentence, he said.
The defense attorney recommended a minimum sentence of 45 years and asked Jones to order it be served concurrently with Wilbourn’s sentences for the rapes.
Jatkiewicz said Wilbourn’s mother and stepfather knew something wasn’t right when they brought him to the Hammond Police Department to talk about how he’d been stabbed. The interview occurred hours after Lucia Gonzalez’s homicide.
Wilbourn’s story about how he was wounded didn’t check out, and evidence at trial showed Lucia Gonzalez likely was killed with a knife and a crowbar. An eyewitness saw Omarion Wilbourn walking down an embankment near his home, where police later found a knife and a crowbar.
“What no one knew then was Omarion Wilbourn was a predator,” Jatkiewicz said. “Earlier that summer, two ladies were viciously raped, dragged into an alley and threatened with a hammer.”
Lucia Gonzalez chose to fight Wilbourn while her children were sleeping steps away, and she lost her life, the deputy prosecutor said.
Jatkiewicz said Wilbourn’s attorney was correct that “life sentences are all but unconstitutional” for juveniles, except in rare cases. Wilbourn is one of those cases, she said.
Monday’s testimony was heart-wrenching, but Wilbourn showed no emotion, Jatkiewicz said.
“Blank. Nothing,” she said.
Jatkiewicz recommended a sentence of 60 years.
Allowing Wilbourn to serve his sentence for murder at the same time as his sentences for rape would effectively signal that one of his victim’s lives didn’t matter, she said.
“(Gonzalez) was a wonderful woman, and ultimately she gave her life so society could be saved from Mr. Wilbourn,” she said.
Frequently Asked Questions
Omarion Wilbourn Now
Omarion Wilbourn has yet to enter the Indiana Department Of Corrections
Omarion Wilbourn Release Date
Omarion Wilbourn is not eligible for release until 2115
Why isn’t there a photo of the victim who was murdered? They deserve to be remembered.