Man gets 23 years for fatal shooting, robbery

His voice shaking with anger, William Fisher tried to express to a Franklin County courtroom the immensity of his loss, the “rage and despair so deep I can’t even describe it to you.”

The focus of that rage was Paris R. Thompson, the 22year-old man who pleaded guilty yesterday to killing Fisher’s son, Joshua, on the Far East Side two years ago.

“Six-hundred fifty-nine days since you murdered my firstborn son,” Mr. Fisher said. “For what?”

He received no answers from Thompson, who was sentenced by Common Pleas Judge Kim Brown to 23 years in prison after pleading to aggravated robbery and involuntary manslaughter. Brown also fined Thompson $20,000, which he will have to pay after his release.

Joshua Fisher, 22, was shot on July 29, 2012, during a robbery outside the Walnut Glen Apartments on Marwood Court.

Police said Fisher had been dealing pain pills and was killed during a transaction in a car with Thompson, a onetime friend, and 17-year-old Malik Askew.

Thompson, of Bracknell Forest Drive on the Far East Side, pulled a gun in what police said was a planned robbery, and Fisher was shot during a struggle for the gun. Fisher ran back to his apartment and, before he died, told his mother that Thompson had shot him, police said.

Askew, of Shawnee Drive in Pickerington, was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty in August to involuntary manslaughter and robbery.

Now 19 years old, Askew was prepared to testify against Thompson if the case had gone to trial, Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Hunt said. At his sentencing set for June 25, he faces nine years in prison as part of the plea agreement struck by his attorney and prosecutors.

Teresa Fisher said Thompson had known her son since high school and sometimes visited their apartment.

“I watched him draw his last breath,” she said of her son. “I want you to lose your freedom just as Josh lost his.”

Defense attorney Mark Miller said Thompson had no felony record. He said Thompson had become addicted to pain pills and did not intend to shoot Fisher. He pleaded guilty to take responsibility, he said.

William Fisher said he didn’t condone the drug dealing that led to his son’s death. But he said Joshua Fisher was decent and hardworking and would have been a credit to society.

He said he hopes that Thompson “gets swallowed up” in prison because, if and when he gets his second chance at freedom, “Josh will be in the same place he is today. Violet Cemetery, Pickerington, Ohio.”