In a tragic case that has shaken the community, Chad Doerman, 33, has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the shooting deaths of his three young sons at their Ohio home last year. A Clermont County judge sentenced Chad Doerman on Friday to three consecutive life terms after he pleaded guilty to aggravated murder charges.
Chad Doerman (Clermont County Sheriff's Office)
He was also sentenced to another 16 years on two felonious assault charges for injuring his former wife and his stepdaughter. The sentencing took place on August 2, 2024, following Doerman's guilty plea to three counts of aggravated murder.
The Crime
On June 15, 2023, in Monroe Township, Clermont County, Ohio, Clayton, Hunter, and Chase Doerman (ages seven, four and three respectively) were shot and killed at their home. Police arrived and arrested 32-year-old Chad Doerman, the father of the three victims, and charged him with murder, felonious assault, and kidnapping.
According to the bill of particulars, on June 15, 2023, Chad Doerman returned home early from work and requested his three sons, Clayton, Hunter, and Chase, and his wife, Laura, join him in the primary bedroom for a nap. Sometime after they had lain down on the bed, Doerman opened his gun safe and retrieved a Marlin Model 70HC .22 rifle. Doerman shot Hunter twice, killing him. Laura began trying to help Hunter while telling the other two sons to run. The 14-year-old stepdaughter, Alexis, who had been watching television, had entered the bedroom and witnessed the first shots. She ran after Clayton, telling him to keep running.
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Doerman chased him into a nearby field, shot him from behind, and then again point-blank in the head. Alexis reentered the house, picked up Chase, and escaped to the road. Doerman followed her and aimed the rifle at her, telling her to put Chase down. He tried to fire but was out of ammunition. Chase ran to his mother, who was now outside in the yard trying to render aid to Clayton. Doerman went inside and carried Hunter's body outside, laying him in the yard. He tried to wrestle Chase from Laura, reportedly biting her in the process. When she managed to grab the rifle, Doerman fired, shooting Laura in the thumb.
Three children were killed in the incident: Clayton, Hunter and Chase.
Clayton, Hunter, and Chase Doerman
Legal Proceedings
Originally, Doerman faced nine counts of aggravated murder and other charges of kidnapping and felonious assault in a total 21-count indictment. Mark Tekulve had originally vowed to seek the death penalty in the June 15, 2023, murders. But on Friday he cited the trauma that the surviving family members “experienced that day and continue to experience on a daily basis.”
“My job, as I saw it this week, was to relieve them of that additional agony,” he told reporters Friday. The plea agreement was agreed upon by the surviving victims in the case, the judge explained. The prosecutor said he plans to reveal more details about the case at a news conference Monday.
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Prosecutors earlier said that Doerman, who was taken into custody after he was found sitting on a stoop at the home, admitted to having planned the killings and chased down one of the boys in a field after the child tried to flee. Defense attorneys had argued that he was struggling with severe mental illness.
During a hearing Friday, prosecutors said they agreed to drop the aggravating factors that made Doerman eligible for the death penalty if he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder. Ferenc said the victims approved of the plea agreement.
Doerman also pleaded guilty to two counts of felonious assault that included the shooting of his wife - the boys’ mother - Laura Doerman, who pressed her thumb over the barrel of her husband’s rifle in an effort to protect one of their children.
Prosecutors describe how they were planning to go after Chad Doerman's insanity defense if he had not pleaded guilty to murdering his sons. Chad Doerman entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity on charges he murdered his three young sons execution-style.
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The Impact on the Family
Laura Doerman, the children’s mother and the ex-wife of the defendant, wept as a prosecutor read a statement in court from her saying her life had been “ripped away from me and destroyed.”
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“I would do anything to push them on the swing, cover them up one more time and hear their little ways of saying, ‘I love you,’” she said. "... I have anger, frustration and so much sadness. Grief will never go away because it is all the love that is left with no place to go.”
In another statement issued through prosecutors after the sentencing, she said that she was in “full agreement” with the resolution of the case. “No punishment will ever bring my boys back,” she wrote. "Having a guarantee that he will spend the rest of his life behind bars is what is best for my family.”
Laura Doerman thanked prosecutors and first responders and asked for privacy, saying she and the family “grieve every day" for the boys. She also asked, however, that people remember the children as they were before the events of that day.
“Remember them as the three little boys who loved fishing, go-carting, and swimming," she said. “Remember them as the little boys who were always at the baseball fields or running around outside.
In a statement read in court, Laura Doerman said she “will never in a million years ever forgive you for what you have done, and hope you pay for your actions like you deserve, but I will never hate you,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
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