An Ohio judge has barred incriminating statements from a man who police have said confessed to killing his three young sons, ruling that authorities violated his constitutional rights after they took him into custody.
Chad Doerman, 33, was arrested last summer after his three young sons were shot and a young girl was seen running in the street screaming that her father “was killing everyone,” authorities said.
Clermont County Common Pleas Judge Richard Ferenc wrote in a ruling that investigators did not properly advise Doerman of his right against self-incrimination and his right to an attorney before his “Custodial Interrogation.”
Nor did investigators stop the interrogation after he “unequivocally and unambiguously invoked his right to counsel,” Ferenc wrote.
Ferenc added that all statements obtained from the interview will be barred from the case.
Doerman’s trial is expected to begin in July.
At a hearing last month, defense lawyers had asked the judge to throw out statements Doerman made during the interrogation over the apparent violations and other issues, NBC affiliate WLWT of Cincinnati reported.
Prosecutor Lara Baron Allen denied the claim at the hearing, telling the judge that authorities did everything properly and “upheld the defendant’s constitutional rights from beginning to end,” the station reported.
Michael Ross, the Clermont County sheriff’s detective who conducted the interview, recalled at the hearing that Doerman said: “The Bible says you kill your first born, you kill your second born, you kill your third born. Bur first you’re supposed to kill your wife. I didn’t kill my wife.”
Court records reviewed by WLWT showed that authorities alleged that Doerman “confessed to planning and carrying out the deaths of the victims for several months.”
Authorities charged Doerman with multiple counts of aggravated murder and other crimes in the June 15 killings of the three boys, ages 3, 4 and 7.
The Clermont County Sheriff’s Office accused him of lining the children up and fatally shooting them with a rifle. Their mother was shot in the hand.
