Toledo man gets 18 to life for woman's shooting death

A Toledo man who admitted killing an 18-year-old woman in a Washington Township home but claimed unsuccessfully at trial it was self-defense received a statutory life sentence Wednesday from a Lucas County judge.

Antonio Hernandez, Jr., now 18, of the 1900 block of North Erie Street, will be eligible for parole after 18 years under the sentence Judge Gary Cook handed down in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, and he received credit for 612 days already served in juvenile detention and the county jail following his arrest.

A jury convicted Hernandez on June 28 for the Dec. 18, 2022, death of Keichell Cardell. While they found him not guilty of intentional murder, the jurors ruled he had committed felonious assault by shooting her, and that the shooting became murder when she died.

The shooting occurred during an evening of drink and drugs in the home and, according to trial testimony, arose from a confrontation between Hernandez and Ms. Cardell after the victim learned Hernandez and her girlfriend were having sex in a bedroom.

In his self-defense claim, Hernandez said a knife-wielding Ms. Cardell lunged at him, but testimony from others in the house did not support his story.

Hernandez’ sentence includes an initial three years for a firearm specification attached to the murder count, then 15 to life for the murder conviction itself. While Judge Cook did not merge the felonious assault conviction with the murder conviction, he made the 11 to 15 years for that count and its firearm specification concurrent with the murder sentence.