“I seen them pathetic pictures this morning and it broke my heart,” Rutherford told Judge Keith Spaeth on Tuesday.
His attorneys Greg Howard and David Washington said they weren’t sure the plea deal would actually happen and they wanted to make sure their client understood what he was up against if he went to trial on Jan.26.
“By the end of the week this plea offer was not going to be available,” Howard said. “I just wanted to make sure he was able to make his decision knowingly and intelligently and voluntarily as to what to do. We had shown him all the evidence in this case months ago and once again wanted to reiterate to him, this is what that jury is going to see and the prosecutor is going to get up and call you a monster.”
Rutherford is suffering from cirrhosis of the liver and his prognosis is not good, according to his attorneys.
Prosecutor Mike Gmoser told Spaeth that Rutherford gunned down his daughter at around 2 a.m. and then went hunting for Watkins, hence the death penalty specification.
Howard said Rutherford’s daughter had moved back in with the family and was letting friends in the house to steal things. He said the fight that sparked the killings was over a gun Rutherford thought Watkins had with him in the bedroom. Rutherford blamed heroin for the family’s troubles.
“This is what heroin’s done to my family and it’s getting worse all around Hamilton, it’s destroying our hometown,” he said. “I don’t like to be a martyr. I didn’t have no choice.”
Lacey Rutherford, 29, was found in the hallway. Watkins was found in a bathroom after police searched the home. Several children were in the house when the shooting happened, including Lacey Rutherford’s 6-year-old son, who could be heard crying in the 911 call.
Rutherford, who fled after the shooting in a red Escort, was arrested at about 11 a.m. in Joyce Park off River Road. He was taken into custody without incident while walking along Joe Nuxhall Boulevard, and he was not armed, police said.
Rutherford, known as “Ike” to friends, has previous felony convictions and 17 cases in Hamilton Municipal Court dating back to 1989, including for OVI, obstructing official business, drug abuse and robbery.
“It’s a sad day, it’s a day Ike knew was coming,” Washington told the judge. “To be quite honest with you, he is quite a different individual than you see in the paper; he is quite engaging. He seems like a nice guy who just made a terrible, terrible choice one day and it’s affected a lot of people.”
Gmoser said he sees things differently.
“While heroin is indeed a scourge in our society, heroin was not the cause of this offense,” he said. “This was a choice made by this defendant in a sober moment. While he may have been upset with his daughter and upset with his daughter’s friend, he still became the judge, the jury and their executioner.”
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