11 August 2023 :
(August 9, 2023) - Caron E. Montgomery taken off death row
A 3-judge panel in Franklin County Common Pleas Court has decided to resentence Montgomery —whom defense attorneys say is mentally ill — to life in prison for fatally stabbing his girlfriend and her two children on Thanksgiving Day 2010 at their Columbus apartment.
Caron E. Montgomery, 49, Black, appeared in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday, more than a decade after a different 3-judge panel sentenced him to death in 2012 for his guilty plea to the killings.
Following an agreement between Franklin County prosecutors and Ohio public defenders representing Montgomery, Judges Jaiza Page, Jeffrey Brown and David Young decided unanimously Wednesday to resentence Montgomery to life in prison without the opportunity for parole.
Montgomery pleaded guilty in 2012 to multiple counts of aggravated murder in the deaths of Tia Hendricks, 31; their 2-year-old son, Tyron Hendricks; and her 10-year-old daughter, Tahlia Hendricks. Their bodies were found on Nov. 26, 2010, the day after they were killed on Thanksgiving Day in their apartment.
Tavarus Hendricks, Tia Hendricks’ brother, spoke on behalf of the Hendricks family in court Wednesday, begging the judges to keep the death penalty for Montgomery.
Attorneys for Montgomery over the years have asserted that he has serious mental illness, was repeatedly traumatized as a young child and was in a mentally disassociated state at the time of the killings.
Earlier this year, the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office and the Ohio Public Defender's Office came to an agreement that essentially asked the judges to sentence Montgomery to life without parole.
