'Cowardly' father admits lining up 3 young sons, shooting them with rifle after prosecutors pursued death penalty for 'monstrous' murders

An Ohio man that Clermont County prosecutors wanted to face the death penalty for the rifle execution murders of his three young sons in June 2023 will avoid capital punishment after pleading guilty Friday to aggravated murder and felonious assault charges.

Chad Doerman, now 33, became notorious almost immediately after bodycam showed his arrest on June 15, 2023, at the New Richmond home where he murdered Clayton, 7, Hunter, 4, and Chase, 3, after lining the victims up and shooting them in front of their mother Laura Doerman, who called 911 and screamed that “her babies had been shot” after her hand was wounded by gunfire.

That day, the bodycam video showed, Doerman was waiting on the front step for deputies to show up at the residence and arrest him, and the rifle was right next to him.

When Clermont County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the murder scene, took Doerman to the ground, and placed him in handcuffs while he was face-down, one of the deputies asked: “What are you doing, man?”

Left inset: Clayton, Hunter, and Chase Doerman (obituary). Right: Chad Doerman after his arrest in June 2023 (Law&Crime).

Doerman turned his head and said: “Can I roll over? I ain’t gonna hurt ya. I ain’t gonna hurt nobody.”

After again being asked what was going on, Doerman replied: “Nothing. Can I stand up? It’s kind of uncomfortable.”

Doerman was hauled away from the Laurel Lindale Road property booked a short time later, and he has remained behind bars ever since.

Chad Doerman appears at arraignment on June 16, 2023 in Clermont County, Ohio (WLWT).

Video recorded after Doerman was taken into custody also showed him banging his head against a wall .

When Doerman was arraigned, prosecutors said in court that he had made a “full admission” in the case to “incomprehensible cruelty.”

“[T]he father that stands before you lined up his three young boys and executed them in his own home with a rifle,” prosecutor David Gast said that day in court. “In an act of desperation, the mother at some point grabbed the gun the father was wielding to attempt to protect them.”

He added that the murders were “[o]ne of the most monstrous, craven, cowardly acts that will ever be our misfortune of seeing.”

Prosecutors said that Doerman began shooting the victims after asking his wife and sons to join him for a nap in a bedroom at their home, just days before Father’s Day. Authorities said that Doerman planned the murders for months and admitted he hadn’t slept for days prior to the slayings because the “thoughts of having to kill his sons was so heavy on him.”

In court, Clermont County Prosecutor Mark Tekulve said that Doerman shot Hunter first with a rifle and then shot Clayton “from behind” while the boy tried to escape, executing his eldest son when he fell. Next, the defendant “ripped” 3-year-old Chase from his mother’s arms and “put a bullet in his head.”

At least one neighbor has said that Doerman was abusive to his wife and kids and that he was “angry every day.”

Prosecutors had long been clear about pursuing the death penalty in the case based on the “full admission,” but the case was tripped up in March when Clermont County Court of Common Pleas Judge Richard P. Ferenc found that a detective failed to properly advise the Doerman of his Miranda rights and continued to question him after he asked for an attorney. He barred the state from using any and “all statements” the suspect made during his interrogation.

Doerman thereafter shifted his strategy to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, as Law&Crime’s Angenette Levy noted when reporting Friday of the expected guilty pleas.

On Friday, the proceedings began with the judge’s acknowledgement that a plea agreement was reached.

Doerman entered the courtroom to changed his plea from not guilty by reason of insanity to plead guilty to three counts of aggravated murder, taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for life without parole.

Doerman also agreed to plead guilty to felonious assaults of his ex-wife Laura and stepdaughter Alexis, Angenette Levy reported from the courtroom.

The defense, for its part, confirmed that it was withdrawing its “serious mental illness” motion and insanity defense.

Under questioning by the judge, Doerman repeatedly said that he understood all aspects of the plea agreement and the punishment to follow, and that he was satisfied with his attorney representation.

“Guilty,” Doerman responded, when the judge asked “how do you plead?” to each of the charges.

In detailing the offenses further, the prosecution said that Chad Doerman bit his then wife and shot her through the thumb when she tried to pull the rifle away from him and save her sons, and that he also committed the slayings in front of his stepdaughter, who was watching TV in the living room when Doerman reached into a gun safe in the bedroom and began murdering her brothers.

After hearing this, Doerman’s lawyer Greg Meyers told the court this his client nonetheless had unaddressed mental health issues. Another lawyer said Doerman was in a state of psychosis on the day of the murders.

During victim impact statements, which were not allowed to be recorded , stepdaughter Alexis looked directly at Doerman as a prosecutor read what she wrote, according to Angenette Levy.

“Nothing will ever be the same again because of you,” she said. “Softball will never be the same… you made me a good ball player. I always want to tell you because I know you would be so proud of me… And Chad I still work very hard on my grades and I was on the honor roll this year.”

Alexis said that Christmas mornings aren’t the same anymore, and that when Doerman murdered her brothers Clayton, Hunter, and Chase, he took her mom’s life and her own life too.

Laura’s statement said that Chad “ripped away and destroyed forever” the life she once knew.

“I grieve the loss of Clayton, Hunter and Chase every day. I grieve the life they never got to live,” their mother said.

“I replay the events of that day over and over,” she said. “I have anger, frustration and so much sadness.”

At the end of the hearing, Chad Doerman was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

On Friday, Law&Crime obtained a statement from Laura Doerman that said “my children and I went through a nightmare that most people cannot even begin to imagine. We grieve every day for my boys, and we miss them so much.”

Laura said she is “in full agreement with how the criminal case resolved,” as the “decision to end this criminal case with a plea and multiple life sentences brings some finality to the court case for my daughter and me.”

“No punishment will ever bring my boys back,” she added. “Having a guarantee that he will spend the rest of his life behind bars is what is best for my family.”

The grieving mother asked for privacy and for the public to remember Clayton, Hunter and Chase as “three little boys who loved fishing, go-carting, and swimming.”

“Remember them as the little boys who were always at the baseball fields or running outside. Remember them as the boys who love to have fun and were inseparable from one another,” she said. “Their lives are not only about what happened to them — they are so much more than that.”

Laura’s sister , a family friend , and the New Richmond Youth Sports Association (NRYSA) — a baseball and softball organization — previously started fundraising campaigns to support the family.

One day after the murders , the NRYSA revealed that three of the four child victims played baseball and softball locally.

The NRYSA’s president said that 3-year-old Chase would “always” go to games to watch his older brothers play baseball.

“He knew when his brothers were on first, second, or third. So he was just waiting for his turn to be able to play,” Kristin Bennett, according to WKEF .

Coaches remembered Hunter and Clayton both for their skill on the diamond and for the joy they had with their friends and teammates.

“We just try to continue to remember how they lived. We talk about the things that they did as kids, the stories that they have with how they’ve lived their lives. The things they did on the baseball field, the things they did in the dugout. The fun things they did as being playful, joyful, loving kids,” Clayton’s coach Dwayne Kuhn reportedly said. “Those are the things we really focus on and the things we think about. And we continue to do that, it’ll help us get through this.”

An obituary for the children said that the three brothers “bonded together in life and now for eternity as God has reeled them in to heaven for unending days of fishing, playing outside way past bedtime, laughing loudly, and non-stop giggling.”

“They loved unconditionally, sharing their big hearts with anyone who they could make laugh and give them love,” the heartbroken family said, adding that Chase “couldn’t wait to be a baseball player like his brothers.”

The post ‘Cowardly’ father admits lining up 3 young sons, shooting them with rifle after prosecutors pursued death penalty for ‘monstrous’ murders first appeared on Law & Crime .