Man who killed father sentenced to 19 years
Joseph T. Shine-Johnson maintains he killed his father in self-defense, but a Franklin County jury believed otherwise last month and a judge on Wednesday didn’t see a reason to question the verdict.
“The decision the jury made, the court has no problem,” Common Pleas Judge Stephen McIntosh said after sentencing Shine-Johnson to 19 years in prison for the shotgun slaying of Joseph Bythewood, 59, on Sept. 10, 2015.
Shine-Johnson, now 30, said he and his father were arguing over money that Shine-Johnson had loaned him when Bythewood, a local music producer, pulled a knife on him, then pointed a shotgun at him.
Prosecutors said ShineJohnson went into the basement to get another shotgun, came back upstairs and fatally shot Bythewood from the backyard as his father stood in the kitchen doorway of the home on Grasmere Avenue.
The jury acquitted ShineJohnson of the more serious charge of aggravated murder, which would have required proof that he acted with prior calculation and design. But the jury convicted him of murder and tampering with evidence for hiding his gun after leaving the house.
The 19-year sentence, which includes four years for using a gun, was the mandatory minimum sentence sought by Assistant Prosecutors Erica Rose and David Zeyen.
Maureen Quinn, Bythewood’s live-in girlfriend, addressed McIntosh before he imposed the sentence. “I love Joey (ShineJohnson), always have and always will,” she said. “But I don’t like him right now.”
Her trial testimony conflicted with the defendant’s version of what happened. Shine-Johnson said Bythewood hit him in the head with a shotgun when he came up from the basement. He said he fired twice at Bythewood because his father was standing in the doorway pointing a shotgun at him and that Quinn did not witness the confrontation.
Quinn said Bythewood was unarmed when he pushed his son out the door into the backyard. She said everyone in the house knew that the shotgun Bythewood had was inoperable.
Defense attorney Frederick Benton said Shine-Johnson “was a young man facing a father’s rage.”
“He had a loaded shotgun pointed at his chest,” Benton said. “Your response is to the perceived threat.”
Shine-Johnson’s sister, Genesis Shine, told McIntosh that their father might have been an accomplished musician, “but he also was a bully.”
“He always was waving a gun around the neighborhood,” she said. “We were afraid to come home.”
Shine-Johnson told the judge he didn’t mean to kill his father. “I didn’t even know what I was walking into,” he said.
McIntosh told ShineJohnson that at 30, he will still have a lot of life ahead of him after 19 years. The judge gave him credit for the 545 days he’s spent in the Franklin County jail.
“And maybe the families can find some peace,” the judge said.