2 sentenced for teen’s death from alcohol intoxication

“Nothing is ever going to bring that young man back. His family is going through such a tragic and painful situation.”

A Chillicothe woman who provided a bottle of vodka to her son’s 17-year-old friend before the teen died of acute alcohol intoxication has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.

And a man in whose basement Jason A. Bartley Jr. was drinking with other teenagers was sentenced to 120 days in jail for misdemeanor offenses related to Bartley’s death.

On Monday, retired visiting Judge Scott Nusbaum sentenced Sandy L. France in Ross County Common Pleas Court for causing Bartley’s death last year, Ross County Assistant Prosecutor Cynthia Schumaker said Tuesday. Nusbaum also ordered France to pay $2,702 in restitution to the family to help cover funeral expenses.

France, 33, was sentenced after she pleaded guilty in May to two counts of involuntary manslaughter, a third-degree felony. The counts were merged for sentencing.

“Nothing is ever going Judge Scott Nusbaum

to bring that young man back,” Schumaker said. “His family is going through such a tragic and painful situation.”

A Chillicothe City Schools employee found the body of Bartley, who was a Chillicothe High School student, around 11 a.m. Oct. 18 in an alley behind a home in the 300 block of East 2nd Street. An autopsy concluded that acute alcohol intoxication was the primary cause of death, and a contributing factor was the anti-anxiety drug Xanax, which was found in his system.

The district worker was looking for Bartley that morning because he had not shown up for class, France Chillicothe Law Director Sherri Rutherford said.

Bartley spent the night of Oct. 17 drinking with several other teenagers in the basement of the home of acquaintance Christopher P. Detty, 33. Detty’s Chillicothe home is within a block of where Bartley’s body was found the following morning.

Bartley’s friends had left the basement, thinking that he had passed out, Rutherford said.

Detty was sentenced July 17 in Chillicothe Municipal Court to 120 days in jail after he pleaded no contest to obstructing official business, a second-degree misdemeanor, and failure to report a death, a fourth-degree misdemeanor. A charge of abuse of a corpse, a second-degree misdemeanor, was dismissed in plea negotiations.

Authorities believe Detty carried Bartley’s body from his basement to the alley, but there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove it, Rutherford said.