Woman gets max sentence for murder of 3-year-old in Ohio store parking lot
CLEVELAND (WJW) – A judge handed down a maximum sentence Monday morning to a woman accused of killing a 3-year-old boy in an unprovoked attack in an Ohio grocery store parking lot last summer.
Bionca Ellis was convicted earlier this month on several charges, including aggravated murder.
On Monday, the judge sentenced the 34-year-old to life without parole.
Ellis did not testify in her own defense during the trial. Her attorneys filed a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity on her behalf. Her attorneys have maintained that Ellis has suffered from mental health issues for years and was not sane at the time of the murder.
The child’s mother, Margot Wood, testified during the murder trial. She cried on the stand as she described Ellis with a knife stabbing her son, Julian, for no reason at a Giant Eagle grocery store in North Olmsted. The boy’s mother was also stabbed in the attack. Wood said she did not know Ellis.
Ahead of Ellis’ sentencing on Monday, she told the court: “That woman murdering my son replays in my head every single day. It is my living nightmare. The last thing I will ever hear from my son is his scream and the sound of his pain and fear before he was gone. I can still see the terror in his eyes, and it haunts me every day.”
Julian’s father, Jarred, also spoke in court, saying his young, dinosaur-loving son was smart, funny and had a way of lifting up others.
He told the court, “That monster took him from us.”
He added, “Now all of our hearts will forever be missing a piece, and it’s up to all of us to keep his light shining even though his star is gone.”
Margot Wood told Ellis in court, “You deserve to go to jail for the rest of your life so you can’t hurt anyone else. You don’t deserve a second chance. You don’t deserve mercy. You didn’t give my son any.”
Mental health experts testifying for the defense describe Ellis as mentally ill and said she didn’t know right from wrong.
On Monday, defense attorneys told the sentencing judge that Ellis is “two different people” depending on whether she’s medicated or not and said they disagree with the verdict.
Ellis briefly spoke ahead of her sentencing, saying, “I just want to say I apologize (inaudible.)”
Nexstar’s WJW has reported in the past on mental health concerns. WJW found that Ellis was released from jail on another case days before the murder despite a recommendation in court to have her get another mental health evaluation.
A prosecution expert, however, testified that he believes Ellis carried out the attack because she was angry and wanted to be arrested.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Ellis felt someone at the North Olmsted Police Department had taken her money after she was arrested on a probation violation a few days before the deadly attack. When Ellis did not get the money she said she was owed from the department, security video shows, she went to a nearby thrift store and took knives from a bin. A few minutes later, she went to the Giant Eagle, waving a knife in her hand.
