Man sentenced in killings of ex-girlfriend, two daughters
Sobs echoed in a Franklin County courtroom Monday as a 15-year-old boy delivered a tearful statement before the sentencing of the man who killed his mother and two younger sisters in a stabbing rampage nearly two years ago.
“Why’d he do that?” Anius Green asked through his tears. “I can’t grow up with a mother to look out for me. I can’t look out for my sisters. They didn’t get to see their teenage years. They didn’t make it to middle school.”
Wendell L. Callahan, 37, of the Southeast Side, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 66 years after pleading guilty to three counts of aggravated murder in the 2016 deaths of ex-girlfriend Erveena Hammonds, 32, and two of her daughters, Anaesia Green, 10, and Breya Hammonds, 7.
Callahan also pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary for entering the family’s apartment in the 900 block of Atlantic Avenue on the North Side to commit the murders.
His plea agreement, negotiated by defense attorneys Fred Benton and Larry Thomas, allowed him to avoid a possible death sentence had he been convicted at trial.
Common Pleas Judge William Woods imposed the sentence, which was recommended by prosecuting and defense attorneys as part of the agreement. With credit for time spent in jail since his arrest, Callahan would be 101 before he is eligible for parole, effectively making it a sentence of life without parole.
“I’m just sorry all this happened,” Callahan said softly when given a chance to make a statement. “I’m sorry for the families that have been hurt by this situation. ... I know there’s no excuse, there’s no justification, there’s no apology I can give. ... I just pray that some way everybody’s hearts can heal.”
Callahan slaughtered the three victims shortly after 1 a.m. on Jan. 12, 2016, Assistant Prosecutor James Lowe said. Erveena Hammonds had called her then-boyfriend, Curtis C. Miller, to ask for help, saying she was having trouble with Callahan. By the time Miller and three friends arrived at the apartment, they heard screams inside and had to kick open the locked door.
The stabbing had already occurred, Lowe said, and Callahan charged at Miller with a gun. The two struggled, with both receiving stab wounds as they grappled over a pocketknife that wasn’t used in the killings, he said. Prosecutors weren’t certain which man had the pocketknife. Callahan then ran from the apartment, but collapsed from his wounds at a nearby apartment building, where he was arrested.
He claimed at the time that he had no memory of the killings, Lowe said.
It wasn’t Callahan’s first reported act of violence against Hammonds. In 2006, she told police that Callahan had beaten and choked her so severely that she thought he “would have killed her if a good Samaritan didn’t pass by.”
Ten of the victims’ family members attended the hearing, with three making emotional statements.
“I just don’t understand who would do this to a child,” said Crystal Green, aunt to one of the girls. “I don’t understand it.”
Several family members wept loudly as Anius spoke. He wore a T-shirt imprinted with a photograph of his mother posing with him when he was an infant.