BATAVIA, Ohio (Scripps News Cincinnati) — After more than a year of court developments — including a ruling that barred his alleged confession from trial — the man accused of gunning down his three young sons on June 15, 2023, is appearing at a surprise plea hearing Friday.
Chad Doerman sits in court during a plea hearing on Aug. 2, 2024. (Scripps News Cincinnati)
Chad Doerman was initially scheduled to appear in court on August 5, but that hearing was postponed. Instead, Doerman appeared in court Friday for a last-minute hearing to accept a plea.
Doerman was charged with nine counts of aggravated murder, eight counts of kidnapping and four counts of felonious assault.
He instead pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated murder — one charge each for the murder of 4-year-old Hunter, 7-year-old Clayton and 3-year-old Chase — and two counts of felonious assault. Judge Richard Ferenc said as a result of the plea deal, Doerman is no longer eligible for the death penalty. Ferenc said Doerman would likely be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole instead; that sentencing was handed down Friday right after the plea change.
The Doerman family released a statement after Chad Doerman pleaded guilty and was sentenced for the murder of his young sons. (Scripps News Cincinnati)
Both Doerman’s ex-wife and stepdaughter prepared statements that were read aloud by one of the prosecution’s attorneys.
His stepdaughter’s statement said that while she could never forgive him, she said she couldn’t hate him because of the dad that he was to her before he killed the boys.
Doerman’s ex-wife’s statement talked about the “emptiness and silence” that Chad created by killing the boys. She said she grieves them every day, and misses the little ways they would say “I love you.”
Laura Doerman also released a written statement after the plea, in which she said she was in “full agreement with how the criminal case was resolved” and asked for two things: 1) privacy for her and her family and 2.) to remember the boys and who they were.
Case Background
On June 15, 2023, county dispatchers received a 911 call reporting a shooting on Laurel Lindale Road in Monroe Township at around 4:15 p.m. Thursday.
Body camera footage from officers showed when they arrived, 32-year-old Chad Doerman was sitting outside his home with a rifle next to him. He was quickly taken into custody and prosecutors said he later admitted to killing his three sons: 4-year-old Hunter, 7-year-old Clayton and 3-year-old Chase.
A bill of particulars filed in Clermont County laid out more information about the homicides and the months leading up to them , when Doerman said he’d been thinking about killing his children.
According to the document, Doerman returned home early from work and, after being home for “a little while,” he picked up a Bible and began walking around the house with it.
“Chad knows what’s right,” the document says Doerman mumbled while walking with the Bible.
The documents say Doerman’s wife intervened and told Doerman that he was scaring her, that she didn’t like what he was doing and that she was going to call his parents.
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Doerman responded that he was “just kidding” and “playing around,” according to the document.
After that, Doerman decided to lie down in the bedroom; because of his behavior, Doerman’s wife did not want him to be alone, the documents say, so she and one of the children went into the bedroom with him.
While this is happening, the boys’ sister was watching television in the family room of the home, the document says.
After lying down with his wife and three sons, the document says Doerman got back out of bed and retrieved the rifle from the gun safe. He inserted a loaded magazine into the rifle and shot one of his sons twice, according to the document
The mother of the children immediately began to render aid to the boy, and yelled for her other sons to run. By this time, the sister had made her way to the master bedroom in time to witness the first shots fired, according to the document.
She ran after one of her brothers, screaming for him to keep running, but Doerman gave chase, firing at the boy as he fled. The document says the boy was hit by gunfire and fell; Doerman approached the boy and fired again at close range.
The young girl then ran back to the house, where she picked up another of her brothers and fled with him in her arms, the document says. As she neared the road, Doerman caught up with the two, raised the rifle and demanded she put her brother down. Doerman attempted to fire the rifle, but it didn’t go off; the document says the gun appeared to be out of ammunition.
The young boy then ran to his mother, who had left the home and gone into the yard to render aid to the boy shot outside. The young girl began to run toward the Monroe Township Fire Department nearby, telling a passerby who stopped her that “her father was killing everyone” as she fled.
The third boy and his mother were approached by Doerman, who bit the woman in an attempt to wrestle her child from her arms. During the struggle, the woman grabbed the rifle and Doerman fired, shooting her through her thumb, according to investigators.
In the chaos, she dropped her child, who Doerman allegedly shot once in the head.
“After the defendant executed all three boys, he sat on the side stoop of the residence” and watched the boys’ mother attempt life-saving measures on her children, the documents say.
In all, nine total shots were fired: one boy was shot once, the other two were each shot four times, the document says.
“The defendant made multiple statements to law enforcement , such as ‘I did it. Take me to jail.’, ‘I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have shot [redacted] and them.’ The defendant also gave a statement during an audio and video recorded interview, during which he admitted to having been thinking about shooting his sons since October,” reads the document.
Doerman allegedly told investigators that he hadn’t slept in the three or four days leading up to the murders because “the thoughts of having to kill his sons was so heavy on him,” the document says.
In March, prosecutors took a hit in the case when Judge Richard Ferenc ruled that all statements made by Doerman during his interrogation by law enforcement would not be allowed as evidence during his trial — which included his alleged confession.
Ferenc agreed with Doerman’s defense attorneys that Doerman’s Miranda Rights were violated because Detective Mike Ross did not fully advise Doerman of his rights before beginning the interrogation.
During the February hearing, Ross took the witness stand and testified. When defense attorneys asked him about whether Doerman had been fully read his Miranda Rights, Ross admitted he hadn’t recited the mandate word-for-word.
Clayton, Hunter and Chase Doerman. (Rachel Brown)
Ferenc also ruled that Doerman’s Miranda Rights were again violated when detectives continued to interrogate him after he’d asked for a lawyer.
At the heart of the argument — which Ferenc heard during a nearly four-hour-long hearing in February — was whether the statement Doerman had made to detectives was an unambiguous request for council. Prosecutors and detectives said it wasn’t; Defense attorneys argued it was.
“I’ll wait for a lawyer,” said Doerman, according to the defense’s motion. “I really don’t know. Give me a couple of days and let me talk to a lawyer so I can get nice, good answers.”
Ferenc determined that, in making that statement, Doerman “unequivocally and unambiguously invoked his right to counsel.”
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In May, Doerman’s attorneys filed a motion asking the death penalty be dropped against their client, citing “serious mental illness at time of offense.”
As a result, Doerman’s trial date, originally scheduled for July, was vacated. The court planned to hold a pre-trial hearing to determine whether Doerman was eligible to receive the death penalty in August instead.
This caused further complications with the case: Judge Ferenc is scheduled to retire at the end of this year and may not be able to preside over Doerman’s trial with the new, delayed timeline. Another judge would need to take over the case and be death penalty-qualified if Doerman is found eligible for capital punishment.
The motion says two experts have already examined Doerman and found that he suffered from a severe mental illness the day he allegedly pointed a loaded Marlin Model .22 rifle at his children and pulled the trigger. However, those experts did not agree on whether Doerman knew what he was doing was wrong that day.
In Ohio, people proven to have suffered from a serious mental illness at the time they committed a crime cannot be executed by the state; however, they can be given a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole
This story was originally written by Felicia Jordan for Scripps News Cincinnati, an E.W. Scripps Company.
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