Whittington gets 170-year term

Charles “Maddog” Whittington will serve 170 years in prison — the maximum — for the February murders of Shane Williamson and his 14-year-old daughter Katelin Williamson.
But Blackford Circuit Court Judge Dean Young wished he could have given a harsher sentence this morning.
Young told Whittington that Katelin’s death was caused not directly by the bullet with which Whittington shot her, but by her own blood filling her mouth and drowning her. It was an execution, the judge said at this morning’s sentencing.
“If I could execute you back, I would,” Young said, lamenting that it was not a capital murder case.
Whittington, a Portland man, killed Shane Williamson Feb. 5 in the parking lot at Hartford Square Apartments, where he lived; his teenage daughter was found dead in their apartment. Both were shot in the head.
Whittington faced a maximum sentence of 170 years for the murders: up to 65 for each murder, plus up to 20 more years for each because they were committed with a gun.
Like the jury, Young rejected the idea that Whittington’s mental illness, including an alter ego, “Elmer,” was to blame.
“There is no Elmer,” Young said. “That’s just someone you conjured up.”
Instead, Young said, Whittington was “just plain evil,” to a point that would have allowed him to fit in with Nazis.
Whittington’s lack of remorse, the execution style of both murders and Katelin’s innocence and suffering were all factors in handing down the maximum sentence. Young acknowledged that Whittington did have some mental health problems, but that they didn’t come close to mitigating his actions.
Prior to the sentencing, Shane Williamson’s mother, Vicki Petit, addressed Whittington.
“My life and the lives of others are now overshadowed by pain and sorrow,” she told him, adding that she wanted the 60-year-old to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Michelle Holmes, Whittington’s daughter, also addressed the court this morning, confirming that her father’s psychological issues went “as far back as I can remember as a kid.”
She also apologized to the family of the victims.
Whittington was found guilty of the two murders Nov. 9 after an hour of jury deliberation.
Testimony in the trial earlier this month indicated that Whittington was agitated because Shane Williamson was talking to Whittington’s ex-girlfriend, Heather Lennartz of Portland. Lennartz had sent nude photos to Williamson, a man Whittington knew through a motorcycle club. Whittington told police Feb. 5 this communication did not bother him, but Williamson’s friend Brian McDonald testified that it did.
McDonald also said Whittington would use Williamson’s Facebook account to stalk Lennartz’s profile. Lennartz had blocked Whittington’s own profile, and also blocked his number on her cell phone.
Lennartz also said Whittington stalked her in person, including allegedly breaking into her house. She described his behavior during their six-month relationship as “possessive,” according to a probable cause affidavit released during the trial.
She also “had a tattoo saying she was the property of Maddog.”
On Feb. 2, three days before the murders, Lennartz served Whittington a protective order. They had broken up in November 2014.
The jury rejected public defender Chris Teagle’s attempt at an insanity defense. The probable cause affidavit detailed Whittington’s claim that he has an alter ego, Elmer, who could have been responsible for the murders.
“Anything is possible with f----- Elmer,” Whittington told police, according to the affidavit, which was written by Hartford City police officer Matthew Felver.
Elmer apparently began appearing after Whittington, a Marine veteran, served in Vietnam.
Teagle told the jury Whittington suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia and depression.
He was on medication, but McDonald testified that Whittington had claimed a “free pass to kill” if he stopped taking it.
Lennartz testified that, while she identifies religiously as a witch, she never tried to get Whittington to stop taking his medication.
Whittington’s former landlord told the jury he had once found his tenant outside in pajama pants, running from imaginary clowns.
But mental health professionals appointed by Young to examine Whittington testified that the defendant was legally sane when the murders happened.
Other testimony in the trial confirmed that Whittington and Williamson had argued the morning of Feb. 5 in the cab of Williamson’s pickup truck, where Whittington shot the man.
Whittington told another witness the injury on Williamson’s forehead happened in a fall. A Hartford City police officer said the wound was clearly from being shot.
Security footage from Wal-Mart, obtained after officers found a receipt from the morning of Feb. 5, showed a man who appeared to be Whittington in clothing similar to what a witness at the apartments described.
And according to the affidavit, Belinda Schmidt, a woman who knew Whittington and called to tell him about the murders, found it odd when Whittington “sounded very nonchalant” despite supposedly hearing about the murders for the first time. She didn’t know who had been murdered, but he told her no one they knew was dead.
Whittington was taken into custody near his Boundary Pike home in Portland about four hours after the murders.