John Jefferson
Inset: Shatia Welch (La Porte County Jail). Background: The apartment complex where Welch’s 1-year-old was killed by his 5-year-old brother (Google Maps).
An Indiana woman learned her fate this week for the tragic shooting death of her 1-year-old son. But she did not accept it happily.
In January, Shatia Tiara Welch, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury.
On Wednesday, she was sentenced to spend the next six years behind bars by Tippecanoe County Superior Court Judge Steve Meyer.
The plea deal saw authorities drop several other more serious charges, including neglect resulting in death and neglect resulting in endangerment, as well as several drug-related charges.
On March 28, 2023, Welch’s 1-year-old boy was shot and killed by his 5-year-old brother at the family’s Romney Meadows apartment on Westchester Lane in Lafayette — a medium-sized city located some 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis. The younger boy would later allegedly test positive for marijuana in his system while the older sibling would allegedly test positive for cocaine, police allege.
The wider question of culpability in the case is still an open one; Deonta Jermaine Johnson, 29, the slain toddler’s father, is currently slated to go on trial in May. Johnson was allegedly home at the time of the shooting while Welch was not, prosecutors say. The couple were scheduled to go on trial last month but those plans were nixed when Welch took an eleventh-hour plea deal just after jury selection.
On Wednesday, however, a trial-like atmosphere reigned during what was expected to be a placid allocution and formalization of the plea deal, according to a courtroom report by the Journal & Courier.
“I don’t know what happened,” Welch told the lead prosecutor on the case. “You can’t tell me without a reasonable doubt that you know what happened, either. With all that evidence that you got, you still can’t give me an explanation. Neither can I give you one.”
The defendant continued on — arguing that she had been punished enough by the facts of, and by reflecting on, the sad case.
“I lost a son,” Welch said. “Lafayette, Tippecanoe County definitely made it more than what it was. More than what it was. I lost more than enough. Something I will never get back. You can never walk in my shoes. Do you think that I don’t think every day what I lost?” Welch continued. “Every day. Every night. Every minute of every second.”
The adversarial less-than-allocution continued.
“You took my (son) from me for something I didn’t do,” Welch reportedly went on, ” … for stuff that you couldn’t prove.”
The judge did not appreciate the defendant’s lengthy accounting of her feelings or her description of the justice system.
“I’m also troubled by the attitude that you’ve shown here today in court, being rather indignant to the prosecutor who was asking you questions,” Meyer said.
The judge’s upbraiding continued:
You seem upset that Tippecanoe County has somehow taken on this case, and somehow, you are a victim in this, and you have no responsibility. Yet you came here and plead guilty to neglect But today you’re trying to backtrack and say it’s all been blown out of proportion. I don’t think it is. A little boy lost his life when he was in your care due to a gun that you brought into the house and you did not keep safely away from your children. That’s the bottom line.
The bottom line, however, may not be particularly long for the aggrieved defendant — at least relative to her sentence.
Under Hoosier State law, she will be eligible for parole after serving 75% of her sentence. And, due to time-served credits because of her pretrial detention, she could end up serving just over two years.
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