COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A man has been sentenced to 14 years in the death of a woman found bludgeoned in her Ohio home on Christmas Day in 2017.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that 25-year-old Dimitrious Rhodes pleaded guilty in February to involuntary manslaughter and evidence-tampering in the death of 57-year-old Rose Douthitt in her home on the Northeast Side of Columbus.
Rhodes told a pre-sentencing investigator a statement that he struck the victim in the head with an object multiple times because he was afraid of her, a statement that prompted Franklin County prosecutors to recommend a maximum term of 22 years rather than the 15 years they originally recommended.
Defense attorney Gerald Simmons said at Thursday’s sentencing hearing that he actually prepared the statement for his client and was “paraphrasing” Rhodes’ comments.
Rhodes was charged after surveillance video from a nearby motorcycle club showed him entering the victim’s house on Dec. 22, 2017, and leaving the following morning. No one else was seen entering or leaving the residence between then and the discovery of the victim’s body.
Prosecutors said the victim knew the defendant, who was a childhood friend of a man she had raised like a son, and would let Rhodes sleep on her front porch when he had nowhere else to stay. The defendant said the two argued over money he said she owed him.
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