Tyanna Thomas was fourteen years old when she fatally shot her brother in Ohio. According to court documents Tyanna Thomas would shoot her fifteen year old brother in the chest with a shotgun after the two were involved in an argument over video games. Initially the judge gave her a break and sentenced her to juvenile detention until she was twenty one years old however her behavior in custody changed that. This teen killer would assault a correctional officer and the judge basically had enough and sentenced the now seventeen year old to life in prison with no chance of parole for fifteen years
A teen in juvenile detention for shooting and killing her brother in 2016 could possibly spend the rest of her life in adult prison because of accusations that she assaulted a corrections officer.
Tyanna Thomas, is 17 years old and was 14 at the time of the fatal shooting. She pleaded guilty in 2017 to murder in Lucas County Juvenile Justice Center and was sentenced to juvenile detention until she is 21 with a suspended adult sentence of 15 years to life in prison that could be imposed.
While in juvenile detention, Miss Thomas assaulted a corrections officer and is facing pending prosecution for felony assault on a corrections officer in Montgomery County, where she was being kept in detention, said Lori Olender, deputy chief of the Lucas County prosecutor’s juvenile division.
Based on the new criminal charge and what Ms. Olender described as a pattern of misconduct while in detention, she filed a motion in Lucas County juvenile court to impose the teen’s adult sentence. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 27 in juvenile court.
The assault occurred in September, 2018, Ms. Olender said. Officials with the Ohio Department of Youth Services contacted prosecutors in Lucas County to inform them of the new criminal charge. Ms. Olender would not give any other details about the assault or about the other misconduct.
The teen has been held in juvenile detention for about two years, and if she were to make it through her juvenile sentence and get released at 21 years old, then the adult sentence could no longer be imposed, Ms. Olender said.
Police found 15-year-old Tommie Thomas, at about 8:50 p.m. on Dec. 7, 2016, inside the teens’ residence in the 1000 block of Woodland Avenue with a single gunshot wound to the chest. He was pronounced dead at ProMedica Toledo Hospital.
Investigators believe the teens were arguing just prior to the shooting.
The state at the time argued that Miss Thomas should be tried as an adult in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, but the request was denied and her case proceeded in juvenile court. The state allows children as young as 14 to stand trial as an adult. Miss Thomas was 14 years and six months old when charged.
According to previous court testimony, Miss Thomas was previously arrested in 2015 on a charge of aggravated robbery near the Toledo Lucas County Public Library’s Mott Branch, where she was suspected of carrying a gun. A firearm was not retrieved, and the charge was later reduced to robbery.
Both Miss Thomas and her brother attended Scott High School. According to previous court testimony, she was also disciplined at school more than 30 times through fourth grade and suspended repeatedly later for such incidents as threatening others and pushing a teacher.
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Tyanna Thomas is currently incarcerated at Ohio Reformatory for Women
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Tyanna Thomas is not eligible for release until 2032
Jordyn Wade was seventeen years old when he participated in a robbery that saw four people killed. According to court documents Jordyn Wade and Robert Adams went to collect money from a group of people that quickly turned violent and four people were shot and killed. Wade apparently stood over the victims while Robert Adams committed the murders.
This teen killer would plead not guilty but would be found guilty on multiple counts and would be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. Robert Adams would plead guilty to multiple charges of murder in exchange for prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table.
A teen who was an alleged accomplice in the shooting deaths of four people last summer has been found guilty.
17-year-old Jordyn Wade was found guilty of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping.
The teenager was accused of helping a 27-year-old accomplice rob five people, then stand with his gun drawn while the accomplice allegedly shot the victims. One victim survived.
35-year-old Angela D. Harrison, 18-year-old Tyajah Nelson, 26-year-old Daniel Sharp and 41-year-old Michael Ballour were all found shot to death at a home on East Hudson Street on June 13.
Wade, who was being tried as an adult, had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The accused gunman, Robert Adams, fled to Mississippi after the slayings and was captured last August by U.S. Marshals. They say Adams was found “cowering in a bedroom closet, surrounded by piles of clothes.”
Adams told investigators Wade was responsible for the shootings. However, court records show the only surviving victim, a now 15-year-old girl, identified the killer as Adams.
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An 18-year-old suspected gang member has been sentenced to 172 years in prison for his role in a quadruple homicide during a robbery at a Columbus home last year.
Jordyn Wade was accused of helping an accomplice rob five people, then stand with his gun drawn while the accomplice shot the victims. One person survived.
A jury convicted Wade in May and a judge sentenced him Tuesday to 172 ½ years in prison.
Co-defendant Robert Adams Jr. faces the death penalty if convicted during his trial scheduled next year. Wade wasn’t eligible for the death penalty because he was a juvenile when the slayings happened.
The Columbus Dispatch reports Wade’s attorney said life without parole wasn’t appropriate given Wade’s age and the fact he didn’t shoot the victims.
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Jordyn Wade is currently incarcerated at the Ross Correctional Institution
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Jordyn Wade is serving over 170 year prison sentence without parole
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obert Lee Adams was sentenced to life without parole for his part in the quadruple murders at a South Linden home in June of 2015.
Adams was sentenced on each of the four counts of murder, and 11 years on the attempted murder. He also received an additional two years for the gun specification. His sentences are to run consecutively, according to the judge.
During the sentencing hearing, Adams addressed the court and apologized.
Adams pleaded guilty Tuesday to four execution style murders and a fifth attempted murder.
According to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien Adams, 29, pleaded guilty to the murders of Michael Ballour, 41, Daniel Craig Sharp, 26, Angela D. Harrison, 35, and Tyajah N. Nelson, 18, that occurred in the basement of Ballour’s house located in the 1600 block of E. Hudson Street in South Linden, June 13, 2015.
Adams was accompanied by juvenile Jordyn Wade, age 16 at the time of the murders. Wade was sentenced to 172.5 years to life on September 13, 2016.
The pair robbed the victims, ordered them to the basement, and Adams then shot the victims, murdering four of them, while Wade stood at the top of the stairs with his gun drawn. After the shooting Adams and Wade fled the scene.
One of the five victims survived the shooting and stumbled from the residence where they sought help. Wade was picked up shortly thereafter
Sabrina Zunich was sixteen years old when she murdered her foster mother. According to court documents Sabrina Zunich was manipulated by Kevin Knoefel to kill his wife and her foster mother. On the day of the murder Sabrina Zunich would stab the victim over a dozen times and cut her over a hundred times. This teen killer would be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for thirty years.
Sabrina Zunich carefully folded three tissues on the table before her as she awaited a hearing that would determine how long she would be in prison for brutally killing her foster mother.
They were used and wadded and she continued to cry when Lake County Common Pleas Judge Richard Collins Jr. said she would serve a mandatory sentence of life in prison but be eligible for parole after 30 years.
Collins made it clear that his recommendation for parole was due to Zunich’s cooperation with prosecutors that led to the conviction of her foster father, Kevin Knoefel.
“I don’t think there was any question she was manipulated and used by the co-defendant,” Collins said. But he said the seriousness of the crime outweighed all factors.
Zunich, 19, had stabbed Lisa Knoefel 12 times and cut her 166 times with a 10-inch serrated kitchen knife. She pleaded guilty to aggravated murder last month.
“Aggravated murder is aggravated murder,” Collins said. “But this was not a single violent act.”
He said Lisa Knoefel suffered before she died.
“She was screaming for help and begging the defendant to stop. She did not die immediately. I cannot imagine the nature of terror and fear.”
Zunich apologized before she was sentenced.
“I want to say how sorry I am for all those I hurt,” she said. “Lisa did not deserve what happened to her. I ask forgiveness be given to me – not for my benefit but for those who need the healing process to begin. I can’t explain how much remorse I have and how much sadness I deal with.”
She made a comment that she had “talked” to Lisa Knoefel and she forgave her.
Collins said he had received letters of support for Zunich from two women in the jail ministry, one who visited weekly. He also received a poem from Zunich, he said. He and Zunich’s attorney, Charles Grieshammer, said they could not release the poem because it was included in the pre-sentence report.
At the hearing Grieshammer asked Collins to allow parole eligibility after 20 years, saying Zunich was emotionally blackmailed by Kevin Knoefel, who convinced her to kill his wife.
“Had she been placed in a loving foster home she might have made it,” he said. “Kevin hijacked her.”
No one spoke on behalf of Zunich, although the courtroom was filled. Among those in the front row was her mother, Susan Edwards, and Edwards’ mother, Alice Matt.
“I’m sorry this happened and I love her with all my heart,” said Edwards prior to the hearing. She was unable to care for Zunich because of drug and alcohol abuse, according to court testimony.
Matt said she writes weekly to Zunich but hadn’t seen her since before her arrest on Nov. 16, 2012.
Zunich did not look at either of them as she entered and left the courtroom.
Prosecutors, who said they did not know of Kevin Knoefel’s involvement in his wife’s death until Zunich told them, told Collins they recommended she have an opportunity for parole.
Zunich, who has been in the Lake County Jail for almost two years, will be transferred to prison in about a week, deputies said.
Zunich was not indicted on the aggravated murder charge until July 15, after a Lake County jury convicted Kevin Knoefel of conspiring with Zunich to kill his wife.
Prosecutors have said they were unaware of Zunich’s sexual relationship with Kevin Knoefel or that he had persuaded her to kill Lisa Knoefel until Zunich spoke with them in May, 2013.
Zunich’s attack occurred while Lisa Knoefel, 41, was in bed and Kevin Knoefel was driving a truck from Michigan to Ohio.
The case against Kevin Knoefel for the most part rested on the testimony of Zunich, whose graphically detailed her relationship with Knoefel and what led her to kill Lisa Knoefel.
Zunich had lived at the Knoefel’s Willoughby Hills home since July, 2011. She had been in custody of Lake County officials since 2010 when it was determined she could not longer live with her paternal grandmother because she was unruly.
She testified in Knoefel’s trial that she was doing well in high school and had plans to model or enter cosmetology school.
She said she expected the Knoefel’s to divorce and she would live with Kevin Knoefel. They had had sexual relations since March, 2012.
She testified Knoefel told her he didn’t love his wife anymore and didn’t want a divorce because he didn’t want to share custody of Hailey, their 3-year-old daughter. He told her they could raise Hailey together.
On Nov. 15, 2012, he cried and told her he had gotten in a big fight with his wife and was going to kill himself if she was not dead. So, with his encouragement, she decided to kill Lisa Knoefel.
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Sabrina Zunich, who brutally killed her foster mother and implicated her foster father in the murder, will be sentenced to prison today.
Zunich, 19, who pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, faces a mandatory life sentence but hopes her cooperation in the case leads Lake County Common Pleas Judge Richard Collins Jr. to allow her to apply for parole after 30 years.
Prosecutors, who said they did not know of Kevin Knoefel’s involvement in his wife’s death until Zunich told them, have recommended she be a candidate for parole.
Zunich has been in the Lake County Jail since Nov. 16, 2012, following her arrest outside Lisa Knoefel’s bedroom.
She had stabbed Knoefel 12 times and cut her 166 times with a 10-inch serrated kitchen knife.
She was not deterred even though Knoefel fought and pleaded for her to stop and the woman’s teenage daughter tried to pull Zunich off her mother and called 911.
Zunich was not indicted on the aggravated murder charge until July 15 , after a Lake County jury convicted Kevin Knoefel of conspiring with Zunich to kill his wife.
Prosecutors have said they were unaware of Zunich’s sexual relationship with Kevin Knoefel or that he had persuaded her to kill Lisa Knoefel until Zunich spoke with them in May, 2013.
Zunich’s attack occurred while Lisa Knoefel, 41, was in bed and Kevin Knoefel was driving a truck from Michigan to Ohio.
The case against Kevin Knoefel for the most part rested on the testimony of Zunich, whose graphically detailed her relationship with Knoefel and what led her to kill Lisa Knoefel.
Zunich had lived at the Knoefel’s Willoughby Hills home since July, 2011. She had been in custody of Lake County officials since 2010 when it was determined she could not longer live with her grandmother because she was unruly.
She testified in Knoefel’s trial that she was doing well in high school and had plans to model or enter cosmetology school.
She said she expected the Knoefel’s to divorce and she would live with Kevin Knoefel. They had had sexual relations since March, 2012.
She testified Knoefel told her he didn’t love his wife anymore and didn’t want a divorce because he didn’t want to share custody of Hailey, their 3-year-old daughter. He told her they could raise Hailey together.
On Nov. 15, 2012, he cried and told her he had gotten in a big fight with his wife and was going to kill himself if she was not dead. So, with his encouragement, she decided to kill Lisa Knoefel.
Donovan Nicholas was fourteen years old when he fatally shot his father’s girlfriend. According to court documents Donovan waited for the victim to head up the stairs to answer a phone call when he grabbed his fathers gun and shot her twice from behind. Nicholas who was quickly arrested attempted to tell police that the murder was committed by his alter ego however they did not believe him nor did the jury at trial.
This teen killer was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for twenty seven years.
No one disputes how Heidi Taylor died — after more than five dozen stab wounds and with a final, fatal shot to the head — but more than a year later, the teenage boy convicted of murdering her in their home maintains he is not to blame.
“I am so scared. I didn’t want to kill her,” Donovan Nicholas, then 14, told an emergency dispatcher in a shaky voice last April from his kitchen in Urbana, Ohio. There he lay bleeding from an inadvertent leg wound sustained while he was stabbing the 40-year-old Taylor with a kitchen knife, over and over.
Voice stuttering, Donovan Nicholas explained to 911 that someone he called Jeff, modeled after the fictional horror character “Jeff the Killer,” lived “inside” him. It was Jeff, he said, who was in control while killing Taylor, the longtime girlfriend of Donovan’s father and the woman who raised him.
Later investigators would learn that Donovan had dressed like Jeff during the murder, even slashing his mouth with a small blade in an impression of Jeff’s rictus. (“Jeff the Killer,” an Internet-born horror character, traces back to around 2008 and is usually depicted as white-skinned homicidal maniac without eyelids or a nose.)
In black pants and a black shirt, according to prosecutors, Donovan hid near the front staircase of his home on the afternoon of April 6, 2017, and then called Taylor down to die. A chaotic and bloody scramble ensued as Taylor pleaded for Donovan to stop attacking her, to call 911.
At one point he got a drink of water and, when Taylor headed for her bedroom upstairs to get her phone, he raced ahead of her, at last retrieving his father’s 9-mm handgun from the nightstand.
Twice he had to load it, but he only had to shoot her once.
“I hate Jeff so much. … He couldn’t have taken somebody else, no,” Donovan Nicholas told 911 after Taylor was dead. “He took me to be his person.”
“I don’t want to die in prison,” Donovan said. “I swear it wasn’t my fault.”
Jurors disagreed: In June, days after his 16th birthday, he was convicted as an adult of aggravated murder and sentenced to life in prison. He will be eligible for parole after 28 years.
Champaign County Prosecutor Kevin Talebi says that Donovan, grown resentful and sunk deep into homicidal fantasy, was pushed over the edge after Taylor decided to take his phone away when she discovered he was sexting with an out-of-state girlfriend.
Talebi vigorously disputes Donovan’s claims of an alternate personality, dismissing it as the excuse of a vicious mind. He notes the psychologists who examined Donovan found him to be legally sane and did not agree that he had dissociative identity disorder as Donovan’s attorney, Darrell Heckman, believes.
But, with Donovan Nicholas appealing, the case is likely to carry into next year. Heckman argues he is severely mentally ill and in critical need of treatment in the juvenile system, where he should have remained.
“There is an important societal issue as to what age do we give up on children for their rehabilitation prospects and what age do we not?” Heckman tells PEOPLE.
As Talebi does, Heckman also cites the evaluations done of Donovan, but for the opposite reason: Two of the psychologists found that Donovan Nicholas, who previously struggled with depression and self-harm, had notable mental health issues even if the exact diagnosis was less clear.
“It’s got feathers, it flies. You don’t really have to identify the bird to know that it’s a bird,” Heckman says.
Taylor’s children, who were raised in a blended family with Donovan and his father, Shane Nicholas (who declined to speak with PEOPLE), aren’t sure what to believe.
In the aftermath of the murder, stunned and mourning, they have gathered around Taylor’s memory, which they don’t want lost amid the case’s grim details.
Daughter Alyssa Nicholas described Taylor as her “best friend” and a doting grandmother to her young girls — “the type of grandma who kept cookie dough in the freezer so that she had cookies on demand,” she recalled in court.
“For my sanity, I would like to think there is something truly wrong [with Donovan] for him to do something so horrific,” Alyssa, 23, tells PEOPLE.
Taylor’s son, 21-year-old Todd Taylor, is more skeptical about what is going on inside Donovan’s head, but still he wrestles with the savage reality of what Donovan Nicholas did last year.
At his sentencing in July, Donovan Nicholas offered his regret and said he would like to receive treatment. In conversations with his family from behind bars, Donovan sounded much the same.
Todd recalls one meeting where he apologized, over and over.
“How do you know it’s sincere though?” Todd wonders. “Anybody can say sorry.”
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Donovan Nicholas is currently incarcerated at the Ross Correctional Institution
Tabitha Messina was convicted of the axe murders of her father and his girlfriend in Ohio. According to court documents Tabitha Messina and Carlos Christopher would break into her fathers home where they would attack him and his girlfriend striking them repeatedly with an axe while the couple slept. This teen killer would be convicted of both murders and a count of robbery. Tabitha Messina would be sentenced to sixty years to life. Carlos Christopher would receive two life sentences without parole.
Tabitha Messina will be 80 years old before she’s eligible for parole. Messina received 60 years to life in prison Friday for masterminding the murder of her father, Richard Messina, 50, and his girlfriend, 43-year-old Sandra Cover. Tabitha Messina, 20, and her friend Carlos Christopher broke into the elder Messina’s house in South Euclid while he and Cover slept July 29, 2007.
Prosecutors said Messina and Christopher attacked the couple with an ax and a crowbar. Then, they stole a Corvette and GMC Jimmy from them. Messina insisted she did not plan or want to kill her father or the woman who served as her surrogate stepmother for 10 years. “Never once would I think of taking the life of the man who raised me,” she said at her sentencing.
However, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Timothy E. McMonagle said the evidence showed otherwise. “She makes things up as she goes along and she believes what she says,” McMonagle said. Even when Tabitha Messina was young, she used to lie after getting in fights, clinical psychologist Dr. Sandra McPherson said. Messina used to attack other children, blame someone else and then get attention by trying to fix the problem, McPherson said in a study that was read by McMonagle.
Several members from Messina and Cover’s family filled McMonagle’s courtroom. Those who spoke made it very clear that they thought life in prison was an insufficient punishment. Linda Moore, Cover’s sister, told Messina she deserved to die for the murder and mutilation of the couple. Cover’s mother, Joann Bartell, said life in prison was “more mercy than she showed Sandy and her father.” Bartell showed the judge a picture of Sandy Cover and said, “There are not adequate words in the English language to describe the pain, anguish and despair I feel.”
Betty Montanez, Richard Messina’s sister and Tabitha’s aunt, echoed the sentiment. “When you forgot to respect him, and you forgot he was your father, we forgot you were our niece,” she said. “At best, you deserve to die in prison, maybe of old age.” The one person in her family who would have forgiven her, Montanez said, was her father.
Tabitha and Richard Messina had an often contentious relationship. “I always used to push my dad to a certain limit to see how much he would take from me,” Tabitha Messina said. Between January 2005 and the murder, South Euclid police were called to Messina’s home 68 times for reasons including loud music, barking dogs, trespassing and juvenile disturbances. Tabitha Messina has alleged that her father abused her, but there is no evidence to corroborate it, Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Patrick J. Thomas said. Christopher has been convicted of murder and given two life sentences without possibility of parole.
The woman accused of murdering her father and live-in girlfriend has been indicted.
Tabitha Messina and Carlos Christopher were each indicted on 12 counts: four counts of Aggravated Murder, with Mass Murder and Felony Murder specifications; four counts of Aggravated Robbery; and four counts of Aggravated Burglary charges.
Police say Messina and Christopher bludgeoned Richard Messina and Sandra Cover with blunt objects inside Richard Messina’s home on July 29th.
The couple then fled the scene – and were later arrested in North Carolina.
Prosecutor Bill Mason said, “This horrific crime shows all the signs of a deliberate, purposeful killing. They broke into the house in the middle of the night and butchered these two victims with an axe in their bedroom. Now they face the death penalty.”
Tabitha Messina is currently incarcerated at the Dayton Correctional Facility
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Tabitha Messina is first eligible for parole in 2067 her max is life
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