Woman gets 25 years in slaying

Middletown resident pleads guilty to killing Deep River man

NEW HAVEN — Lashanda Gregory, who told a judge, “If I could take it back, I would,” was sentenced Thursday to serve 25 years in prison for strangling to death and robbing Byron McDade at the Branford Motel on the July 4 holiday weekend three years ago.

Gregory, 30, of Middletown, had pleaded guilty three months ago to reduced charges of first-degree manslaughter and third-degree robbery. Prosecutors dropped the murder charge in exchange for her guilty plea to the lesser charges. The plea agreement specified she would receive a sentence of 20 years for manslaughter and five years for robbery.

According to the Branford Police Department arrest warrant, Gregory told police she encountered McDade at a Middletown gas station shortly before midnight July 2, 2014. She said he called her over and told her he “wanted company.” Gregory admitted to police she was a heroin addict and that she asked McDade to drive her to Hartford so she could buy narcotics.

After McDade bought some crack cocaine, she said, they went to the motel and had sex. Gregory said McDade was “very rough” with her.

She told police McDade forced her to have more rough sex repeatedly throughout the night. At one point, when McDade was lying on the bed and turned his back to her, she said she “snapped” and used a bed sheet to strangle him.

Gregory also admitted to police she stole about $100 from McDade’s pants as well as his car keys and cellphone, then left his body in the motel room and drove away in his vehicle. She also noted she had tied his hands behind his back.

During Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Senior Assistant State’s Attorney John P. Doyle Jr. told Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford this was “an unusual case” as he outlined the police investigation.

Doyle said McDade, 41, of Deep River, had asked the motel staff for a wake-up call on the morning of July 3. At 2:15 p.m. that day, having not heard from nor seen McDade, the motel manager opened the door to his room and found him lying face-down on the floor with a blood-stained bed sheet wrapped around his neck. Medical personnel were called and pronounced him dead at the scene.

Doyle noted police found a receipt on the motel room’s floor from a nearby gas station and convenience store. When police viewed surveillance tape from that business, they saw two people, later identified as McDade and Gregory, buying coffee and soda at about 2:40 a.m. that day.

Police used information from witnesses to learn Gregory’s name and find her in Middletown, where she was arrested.

Doyle said she has a detailed criminal history for larceny and narcotics convictions but never before had committed a crime of violence.

“She has a pattern of moving around, being involved with the criminal justice system,” Doyle told Clifford. Doyle also said Gregory did not provide proper care for her three children.

“She has a life history of repeated drug abuse,” Doyle said.

McDade’s cousin was in court Thursday but she did not make a statement. McDade’s mother lives in Alabama and could not make it to the sentencing hearing. Victim Services Advocate Beata Bagi read into the court record a statement from the mother, Geneva M. Hunter.

“I am writing this letter in great pain,” Hunter said. “Pain that has been present with me and in me since July 2014, when I first learned of my son’s (my only child’s) murder. When my child was murdered three plus years ago, I, too, was murdered. My entire family was murdered.”

“Every day I still ask God for a miracle,” she added. “I ask him to please let me just see my son one more time, so I can tell him that I love him just one more time.”

Hunter said relatives and friends continue to call her in disbelief. “They all say the same thing concerning Byron’s kind and giving spirit. ... He was always generous to a fault. I and other family would often fuss at him for giving everything away.”

She said even the family’s dog, GP2, who loved to follow McDade everywhere he went, was deeply affected by McDade’s death. “Immediately after Byron’s murder, GP2 would follow the family to church on Sundays and wait for us by Byron’s grave site.”

Hunter concluded by stating: “I believe that after the sentencing and justice is done, I and my family will have closure and maybe finally try and begin some type of healing process.”

Former New Haven Public Defender Thomas Ullmann, who recently retired but has continued to work on Gregory’s behalf, told Clifford at the hearing that she came from a “dysfunctional” family. “It’s not surprising that she ended up in this situation,” Ullmann said.

He told Clifford that Gregory “has a soft interior.”

Alluding to Gregory’s account of the rough sex she said she endured, Ullmann noted “a lot of sexual improprieties occurred that night” in the motel room. “Instead of calling police, she left.”

When Clifford gave Gregory a chance to speak, she stood up, attired in prison garb of a white sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. “Nothing in my record is violent,” she said.

She added about this case, “It has nothing to do with how I was raised.”

“As for my children,” she said, “I’m a single mother.”

Gregory added, “If I could take it back, I would. Nobody will ever really know what happened” in that motel room. “I’m sorry for the family.”

But then she said, “He was not a nice man.”

Clifford told her that was not a nice thing to say about the victim. “He was 41. He was his mother’s only child.”

Clifford expressed doubt about Gregory’s statement that her troubled upbringing had nothing to do with her actions at the motel. He noted she spent much of her youth in group homes and juvenile detention centers.

Clifford also pointed out that her three children were from three different men and “They’ve been violent fathers.”

“Your claim is you killed him because you ‘snapped’ during rough sex,” Clifford said. “As you said, the people in that room know what occurred. You know exactly what happened.”

Clifford added, “This is something that happens when you lead a marginal lifestyle.”