The criminal case against Chad Doerman is over, but prosecutors say there may never be an answer to why Doerman gunned down his three young sons on a sunny spring afternoon. On June 15, 2023, in Monroe Township, Clayton, Hunter, and Chase Doerman (ages seven, four and three respectively) were shot and killed at their home.
Monroe Township, Clermont County, Ohio
Police arrived and arrested 32-year-old Chad Doerman, the father of the three victims. He was charged with murder, felonious assault, and kidnapping. A Clermont County man is accused of lining his three young sons up and shooting them with a rifle, executing the boys, who were ages 3, 4 and 7.
Chad Doerman, 32, allegedly confessed to police that he had planned the Thursday triple homicide that turned the Monroe Township home he shared with his family into a crime scene crawling with investigators and cordoned by police tape. On Friday, Doerman’s neighbors seemed in disbelief. Polite tape surrounded the family’s property near the corner of Laurel Lindale and Clermontville Lindale roads, which county records show that Doerman bought in 2016.
Strewn across the property were heartbreaking reminders of how typical a household the place had seemed to neighbors not 24 hours prior: A pop-up camper sat in the yard along with a trampoline and kids’ toys. On the back edge of the property sat a propane tank and pile of logs stacked high.
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The Events Leading to the Crime
Were there warning signs? Doerman took the boys to a local dirt track race, fishing and even coached third base for Clayton’s baseball team in the five days before the killings, prosecutors said. He worked full-time as an insulator and his coworkers didn’t notice anything alarming about his behavior. Prosecutors said that no prior disturbances had been reported to authorities regarding the Doerman household.
“From the outside view, from the inside view, this was just a normal family that seemed very happy,” Tekulve said. The first indication that something was awry came on the morning of the shooting. On June 15, 2023, Doerman went to the Anderson Township Kroger’s Little Clinic at the behest of his mother after he reported having “some confusing feelings,” said Tekulve, who did not comment on what specifically Doerman told his mom. He left the clinic after less than two minutes without signing in or talking to staff.
Doerman returned home early from work and spent the day doing yard work and playing with the kids. It was a warm Thursday afternoon. His wife made lunch, which he cryptically referred to at the time as “his last good meal,” according to prosecutors. The boys had baseball practice the night before. Their bikes and toys sat in the yard of the single-story home on Laurel Lindale Road.
Doerman eventually started pacing the house carrying a Bible and mumbling, "Chad knows what's right," according to prosecutors. His wife noticed the behavior and told Doerman he was scaring her. Doerman told her he was "just kidding" and "playing around," and decided to lie down. His wife did not want him to be alone, so she and her sons went into the bedroom with him.
The Day of the Killings
At some point, Doerman got back out of bed and got his .22 caliber Marlin rifle out of the gun safe and shot one of his sons, the document states. His wife called 911 while screaming for her other children to run. "My husband shot my baby," she shouted to a dispatcher before the call disconnected. The couple’s other kids could be heard screaming in the background.
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Doerman chased one of the boys into a field behind the house and shot him as he fled then again at close range after the boy fell, according to the document. The boys' sister picked up her last surviving brother and ran with him toward a nearby firehouse, but Doerman caught up to her and at gunpoint demanded she put the boy down.
"Once she put the child down, (she) begged the defendant not to shoot her," the document states. "She witnessed the defendant attempt to shoot (the boy) however the gun misfired, and (he) fled to his mother." The boys' sister kept running toward the fire station telling a passerby that her father was "killing everyone." Doerman went to the last boy and shot him. His mother suffered a gunshot wound to her hand trying to protect the boys, prosecutors said.
The document said after the boys were dead, Doerman picked them up and laid their bodies next to each other in the yard. “I called and nobody came!” the boys’ mother frantically screamed in a second 911 call. With their guns drawn, they approached Doerman who was sitting on his front porch.
Body camera footage shows the deputies at the edge of the Doerman property with their guns trained on Doerman demanding he put his hands up and step toward them. He did not comply. Keeping Doerman in their sight, the deputies walked up to the porch as they continued to issue commands. Then they grabbed him and pulled him away from the rifle resting at his side. "I ain't gonna hurt nobody," Doerman said calmly. "I'm completely sober." The back of his shirt was stained with blood from carrying one of his sons to the front yard, prosecutors said.
First responders attempted life-saving measures on the boys but all three were declared dead at the scene. “Tell them I did it. Take me to jail,” Doerman shouted while being detained in the back of a police cruiser.
Read also: Unveiling the Doerman Case
Chad Doerman's Murder Confession Tossed Out: OH v Doerman
Legal Proceedings and Aftermath
During a roughly 2½-hour interview, Doerman claimed to have connections within the CIA and said that his wife had poisoned him, Detective Michael Ross testified at a hearing earlier this year. Doerman also said he had been planning the executions for months, according to investigators. Prosecutors said Doerman acknowledged to detectives that he had trouble sleeping because of his plan to kill his sons.
His statements in that interview were ruled inadmissible after a judge found the detective did not properly advise Doerman of his rights and failed to stop the interview when Doerman asked for a lawyer. While Doerman claimed at times to remember nothing about the shooting, he told his family the opposite. "No, I remember everything," he told his mom in a recorded jail phone call. "All the way to all the reasons why and everything."
On Monday, Tekulve indicated that the true motive behind the killings may never come to light. Doerman was given a $20 million bond. At his arraignment, he appeared in a padded green vest meant to stop prisoners from harming themselves. He would eventually plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
Chad Doerman
Mental State and Sentencing
Doerman's attorneys acknowledged the horrific acts their client committed, but said Doerman was struggling with mental illness at the time and was "profoundly sick." They said two experts who analyzed Doerman believe he was seriously mentally ill at the time of the offense. A defense expert opined that Doerman was suffering from bipolar disorder when he shot his sons. However, a third expert appointed by the court determined that Doerman did not have a serious mental illness impairing his judgment.
“Mr. Doerman’s careful execution of the murders, coupled with statements he made to law enforcement after they arrived on scene, indicated that he appreciated the nature of what he did, as well as the wrongfulness and consequences of such,” Dr. Carla Dreyer wrote. Doerman was never diagnosed with, treated for, or prescribed medication for any mental health condition before the shooting, prosecutors said, adding that his statements to police and others were inconsistent with those of someone suffering from delusions.
On August 2, 2024, Doerman pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated murder and two counts of felonious assault as part of a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole. Additionally, the two felonious assault charges carry a 16-year minimum sentence, which would be served consecutively to the life sentences. Doerman has been held at the Clermont County Jail since his arrest last June.
Community Impact
“The trauma this man has inflicted … is unspeakable,” said David Gast, who heads the Clermont County Prosecutor’s Office criminal division. “The evil horror of what we know is impossible to process.” In a Friday morning arraignment, prosecutors said that the boys’ mother was shot in the hand as she tried to shield her sons.
Gast said that one of the three victims had tried to run away, fleeing toward a field near the family’s home. In it, a woman screamed that her “babies had been shot,” according to a statement released by the Clermont County Sheriff’s Office. A second call made three minutes later was from a neighbor who reported that a young girl was running down the road screaming that “her father was killing everyone,” officials said.
Officials kept other details under wraps as well. While they declined to identify the boys or their mother, they did relate that a 34-year-old woman found outside the home suffered a gunshot wound to her hand. She was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Sheriff Robert S. Leahy met with the woman to inform her of the death of her sons, according to the sheriff's office. Medics attempted to perform CPR on the boys to no avail.
“They held these children knowing there was nothing they could do,” said Gast, who described the first responders and the community at large as traumatized by the deaths. Little was revealed Friday about the three boys who were killed. The 7-year-old attended Locust Corner in the New Richmond Exempted School District for kindergarten but withdrew this year, Superintendent Tracey Miller said.
Shortly after the shooting, a crisis team was stationed at Monroe Elementary School for those who needed aid.
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