Photo: Alford’s Mortuary
An Indiana man has been sentenced to prison for stabbing his ex-girlfriend 105 times in what a judge called “an act of hate, an act of savagery.”
On Wednesday, Marshun Lloyd received a 65-year sentence — 55 years behind bars and 10 years suspended — for the March 2019 murder of ex-girlfriend Ashley Starr, theSouth Bend Tribune,WNDUandWFFTreport.
The sentencing comes months after Lloyd pleaded guilty to the 30-year-old’s murder last November.
Before Starr’s death, Lloyd had sent the mother-of-three a series of threatening text messages, said prosecutors, who read some aloud in court.
“If I can’t have you, nobody can,” one text said.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
At Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, Starr’s mother, Christine Dotson, testified that Starr’s three children were “not doing well.”
Marshun Lloyd.South Bend Police
“Everybody asks me how they’re doing, they’re not doing well,” Dotson said. “I know they have sleepless nights, but they’re not talking to me.”
Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hurly said Lloyd made “a choice, not just to kill, but to kill in the most violent manner you could possibly do so,” theTribunereports.
Starr worked as a dietician and was close with her family, who attended the sentencing wearing in purple shirts in her honor.
WNDU reports that St. Joseph County Deputy Prosecutor Chris Fronk said he was “grateful to be able to solve this via plea, spare the family a trial, because obviously, as you heard in the court, the trial would have dwelled in-depth on some very difficult and gruesome issues.”
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
source: people.com
