And he may never get out of prison again.
Walter Jerome Young, 50, of 705 Carpenter St., Columbus, was sentenced by Scioto County Common Pleas Judge Howard H. Harcha III to a total of 18 years in prison.
Young had been accused in the death of Louella Ridley, 95, of 1111 James. F. Scott Drive, on Oct. 14, 2005, and had waived his right to a jury trial, appearing before Harcha last week. Young previously also has been convicted of attempted murder and robbery.
The trial lasted three-and-a-half days and the court heard testimony from 18 witnesses, with the murder charge succumbing to a set of bizarre circumstances surrounding the charge.
According to court records, a friend was bringing lunch to Ridley, and when she approached the front door, she saw another person moving in the house and recognized the person to be Young, because she reportedly had known him for many years and is distantly related.
When Ridley was found, she was unconscious on the floor of her residence with the ties of her blouse around her neck.
Ridley was then taken by ambulance to the Intensive Care Unit at Southern Ohio Medical Center, where she did not regain consciousness for eight hours and later was moved to a regular floor of the hospital. On Oct. 27, 2005, she was discharged from the hospital to Heartland Nursing Home in Portsmouth, where she died on Nov. 26, 2005.
While Harcha ruled Young had strangled Ridley, he was unable to determine Young's actions were the actual cause of her death a month later.
Young was sentenced to nine years on the aggravated robbery conviction, to run concurrently with an eight-year sentence for felonious assault. But Harcha sentenced Young to nine years on the aggravated burglary conviction to run consecutively with the nine-year robbery one, bringing the total to 18 years.
Scioto County Prosecutor Mark Kuhn said Young will have to serve at least all 18 years, and he could be facing decades beyond that in prison as well.
“We expect his parole from previous sentencing will be revoked, after we send the parole authority a copy of today's entry,” Kuhn said.
He also said Young had been sentenced in 1982 on convictions of attempted murder and aggravated robbery, and was paroled, only to be sent back to prison after a 2004 conviction on a receiving stolen property charge.
“The parole authority released him again,” Kuhn said. “So after he serves this 18-year sentence, he will go before the board, and they will determine if he has to serve the remaining years on his earlier convictions.”
Kuhn estimates Young has about 50 years to serve on those convictions.
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