Man gets 13 years in fatal shooting of wife

Ashley and Sean Newman’s first date was at a shooting range.

And it was a gun that ended Ashley’s life on New Year’s Eve 2017 and brought her family and Sean before Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Stephen Mcintosh on Monday afternoon.

Sean Newman, 34, of Groveport, entered guilty pleas to one count each of involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault and admitted to taking the life of the woman he called his soulmate and best friend. Mcintosh sentenced him to 13 years in prison.

The plea and sentencing came as his trial was set to begin Monday.

Assistant county prosecutor Sayje Brown told Mcintosh that Sean Newman called his mother around 11:15 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2017, to tell her that he had shot his wife, 30-year-old Ashley, and was planning to take his own life.

When officers arrived at the couple’s home in the 4000 block of Yukon Avenue on the Southeast Side, they were forced to break down the locked front door and found Ashley inside with a gunshot wound to her head.

Sean Newman had fled the home and was found by Franklin County sheriff’s deputies a short time later after crashing his vehicle into a van with two women inside in the area of Interstate 270 and Alum Creek Drive. He walked away from the crash, and deputies said it appeared he was trying to run in front of oncoming traffic.

Once in custody, Sean Newman told deputies he had killed his family.

Ashley Newman died a short time later, becoming Columbus’ first homicide of 2018.

In statements to Mcintosh, Ashley Newman’s mother and stepfather, Anne and Billy Baisden, said they find purpose only from raising the Newmans’ daughter.

“Sean Newman destroyed my family by taking this woman,” Billy Baisden said. He added that he felt he failed as a father by failing to protect his daughter.

Anne Baisden said her granddaughter encouraged her to be brave when coming to court on Monday, but said she has been in a “living hell ... of depths I didn’t know existed.”

Newman’s attorney, Mark Collins, said Sean doesn’t remember anything for about three hours before hearing a gunshot and watching his wife’s body fall.

“Somehow the gun went off in his hand,” Collins said.

The couple had been drinking to ring in the new year, and DNA from both Sean and Ashley was on the firearm.

“Everything that could go wrong did,” Collins said.

In a letter he read aloud in court, Sean Newman apologized to Ashley’s family for taking something away from them that can never be replaced. He said he understood the hesitancy of the Baisdens to forgive him and he struggles to forgive himself.

“Your anger at yourself is justified,” Mcintosh told Newman. “It was your actions that caused Ashley’s death.”