Eastern Indiana man gets 170 years for killing man, daughter

HARTFORD CITY, Ind. (AP) - An eastern Indiana man who a judge described as a "monster" was sentenced Monday to 170 years in prison for fatally shooting a man and his daughter earlier this year.

Blackford Circuit Judge Dean Young imposed the maximum sentence on Charles Whittington for the Feb. 5 slayings of 40-year-old Shane Paul Williamson, of Hartford City, and Williamson's 14-year-old daughter, Katelin, but said Whittington deserved the death penalty.

Young said he could not understand why the 60-year-old Portland man had taken the teenager's life.

"She did absolutely nothing to you, and you executed her," he told an emotionless Whittington. "Know this: If I could execute you back, I would."

The judge said the Blackford High School freshman had likely "suffered immensely, in terror," before dying from a gunshot wound to the mouth.

"I am sentencing a monster today," Young said.

A Blackford Circuit Court jury convicted Whittington of two counts of murder on Nov. 9. A witness testified during the trial that Whittington was agitated by Shane Williamson's online contact with Whittington's former girlfriend.

Investigators said Whittington broke into Williamson's apartment to confront him, but found the girl at home because of a weather delay. After shooting her, Whittington waited for Williamson to come home and killed him in his truck.

"The one question I have for you is, why? Why? Why? Why? I understand why you disagreed with Shane, but why Katelin? Why would you take your anger out on a 14-year-old girl?" Shane Williamson's mother, Vickie Petit, told Whittington during the hearing.

Whittington looked at her from the defense table, but said nothing.

Defense attorney Chris Teagle asked for a sentence less than the maximum because of Whittington's history of treatment for mental illness.

Young said he had considered more than 1,000 pages documenting Whittington's mental health treatment, but said he did not believe the defendant's claim that he has an evil alter ego named Elmer.

"That's just somebody you conjured up to continue mooching on the system," the judge said.

Whittington's only words Monday came at the hearing's conclusion, when he told Young that he understood he had 30 days to begin the process of appealing his convictions.

Whittington held court documents over his face and did not respond to reporters' questions while being led from the courthouse to a police car.