MOUNT VERNON – For the family and friends of Jaime Linn Barber and Sandra Stelk, it might not matter that Travis Bonham confessed to killing his mother and girlfriend or that he was sentenced to prison for a very long time.
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
A change of plea and sentencing hearing on Monday could have brought some semblance of closure for the family and friends of Barber and Stelk. Instead, it left many of them visibly angry and distraught because there was an asterisk in Bonham’s sentence: eligibility for parole after 42 years.
Under the terms of a plea agreement, Bonham, 31, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated murder and single counts of tampering with evidence, grand theft, theft of a firearm and having weapons under a disability.
Through the recommendations of the plea agreement and Knox County Common Pleas Judge Otho Eyster’s sentencing, Bonham maintained a chance for parole, although that possibility is decades away. The maximum penalty for aggravated murder is life in prison without parole.
Under the plea agreement, the aggravated-murder counts’ firearm specifications, which would have added six years to Bonham’s sentence, were dropped.
Bonham was accused of fatally shooting his mother, Stelk, 50, and his girlfriend, Barber, 23, on Sept. 29. Both women were found dead from gunshots to their heads the next day in Stelk’s Coshocton Avenue home near Mount Vernon. Bonham told police that he shot the women while high on bath salts.
He previously pleaded not guilty to charges.
A message seeking comment on the plea deal was left for Bonham’s attorney.