After Robert Sherman was accused of assaulting Ashley Darrington at a West Toledo motel in April, 2020, she told arriving officers he had threatened to kill her if she called the police about it.
Body camera footage from Officer Lucas Snowberger's interview with her was among the evidence introduced Tuesday in Lucas County Common Pleas Court. The video was used to support prosecutors' allegation that Mr. Sherman followed through with that threat nine days after his release last year from a prison term for a domestic violence conviction that arose from the incident at the Quality Inn on Secor Road.
Miss Darrington, 24, was found dead Feb. 15, 2022 on her bed in her apartment in the Hilltop Village complex off Byrne Road in southwest Toledo after police received an anonymous 911 call requesting a safety check.
"She has an abusive boyfriend and the door's wide open," the caller told emergency dispatchers in a recording played for Common Pleas Judge Stacy Cook, who is hearing the case as a bench trial.
Seated on the bed near his mother's head when Officer Corey Morgan entered the room was Robert Sherman, Jr., 1, while the couple's daughter, Angel Sherman, 2, slept near her feet. The boy could be seen on Mr. Morgan's body-cam footage, while he testified Tuesday that the girl woke up when he touched her.
Neither child was injured, but Miss Darrington was shot five times, the Lucas County Coroner's Office later determined.
Sherman, 27, of the 1700 block of Millburn Avenue, is charged with aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, robbery, felon in possession of a weapon, and two counts of endangering children. He was arrested the evening after Miss Darrington's body was discovered by police who had staked out a different apartment complex where his mother lived and was where he had told his parole officer he would be staying following his Feb. 4, 2022 release from custody.
In his brief opening statement, defense lawyer Ronnie Wingate urged the judge to “pay close attention to the evidence” because there is a valid question of the killer’s identification “that is not provable beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Among the allegations in the case is that Sherman and Miss Darrington together visited the Towers Armory firearms store in Oregon. That is where, according to opening remarks from Jennifer Liptack-Wilson, an assistant county prosecutor, Miss Darrington purchased on his behalf the semi-automatic rifle he is believed to have used to kill her. Five shell casings matching that type of gun were among evidence police took from her bedroom, according to trial testimony.
Another element in the case is a gray Dodge Journey that Ms. Liptack-Wilson said Miss Darrington and Sherman bought just days before her death that was registered in Miss Darrington’s name. Such a vehicle appeared on several pieces of surveillance video shown during testimony Tuesday, and police said it also was present at Sherman’s mother’s apartment building when he was arrested.
And two days before her body was found, Miss Darrington called 911 to report Sherman had assaulted her in her apartment and taken her only key to the dwelling. But Officer Lindsey Erhart said on the witness stand Tuesday morning that Miss Darrington recanted all of what she had said over the telephone, although she could not produce the apartment’s key.
“She appeared to be upset, but she did not seem to want to talk to us,” Ms. Erhart said.
Other witnesses during the trial’s opening day included Mertes Darrington, the victim’s mother, who said she had taken her daughter to the hospital following the 2020 incident and that Miss Darrington spent the night of Feb. 13, 2022 at her home.
Miss Darrington returned to her own apartment the following evening after Royston Williams, the Hilltop complex’s maintenance man, changed the locks on her dwelling. Mr. Williams told the court that when he and Miss Darrington went to do that on Feb. 14, 2022, a man he saw only briefly was inside the unit and demanded to know who was with her.
Ms. Liptack-Wilson said prosecutors believe Miss Darrington was killed that night based on times the gray Journey was recorded arriving at and then leaving the Hilltop Apartments.
Officer Lucas Snowberger, who had interviewed Miss Darrington at the Quality Inn in 2020, said she looked “withdrawn” with a “thousand-yard stare” when he met her in the motel lobby.
In the bodycam video, she told the police officer Sherman had demanded that she rent a car for him, and she refused, after which an argument and physical violence followed.
He left on foot, she said in the video, after “he told me that if I called the police, he was going to kill me.”
First Published May 16, 2023, 10:31 p.m.
