Indiana – An Indiana man was sentenced to a total of one hundred and twenty years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of murder in the deaths of his former spouse and their chiId. A judge imposed two consecutive sixty year terms as part of a negotiated plea agreement that ended the case against him. The defendant kiIIed both victims, then tried to conceal their bodies near the Illinois border.
The defendant’s, 36-year-old J. Pennick, guilty plea followed an investigation into the Oct. 2024 disappearance of 36-year-old S. JerreII and their chiId, CoIton, 14. Family members reported the pair missing after they were not heard from for several days, and concern grew when a social media post purportedly from the woman did not sound like her to relatives. Indiana authorities were alerted and a welfare check and missing-person inquiry began. Search efforts led investigators to an area, where search teams located shallow graves containing two bodies.
According to court records and statements reported by prosecutors, the defendant admitted to strangling both victims in Oct. last year, then transporting the bodies and burying them in the same shaIIow grave. Court documents quote the defendant as telling investigators, “I just put my hands around her neck and wouldn’t let go and buried them in the same grave,” a statement that prosecutors cited as part of the factual basis for his guilty pleas…