By JOEL E. MAST, Examiner Correspondent
No son should have to confront the sins of his father in open court, but Paul Quint did just that Wednesday before Logan County Common Pleas Judge Kevin P. Braig.
“I am the oldest living son of someone I love deeply,” he said of his late mother Wanda Quint. “My life has been shattered. I wake up every morning with the crushing reality she is gone.
“The grief has been overwhelming.”
The grieving son choked back tears as he began to recount the immediate moments after he learned his father, Kenton E. Quint III, had shot and murdered his mother.
He was in Colorado on March 18 when he learned of the slaying. It was too late to catch a flight home so he spent the night alone and away from his family.
“I couldn’t be with them when they needed me,” he said prior to his father’s sentencing.
He was one of the many family relatives who filled the benches and a row of folding chairs inside the courtroom. They had gathered to hear Kenton Quint enter a guilty plea to aggravated murder.
The son acknowledged no sentence could bring his mother back but a stiff sentence would hold his father accountable and serve justice to a grieving family.
A granddaughter of the defendant also chose to speak.
Kendra Kearns told Judge Braig her grandmother’s murder has been devastating to her and the family. She said she has experienced anxiety attacks and fits of uncontrollable sobbing. Therapy, which continues, has not helped, she told the court.
“I can’t even look at anything related to Elvis (Presley) the Cincinnati Reds or the Cincinnati Bengals without crying because she loved those things so much,” the recent college graduate said. “Time has not softened the pain; it has only made the reality seem that (much) deeper.
“And my grief has been complicated by something I never expected: questioning every memory I ever had with my grandpa. I have had to accept that the man I thought I knew, never truly existed. My family has uncovered awful things he hid from us for years.
“And instead of even showing a shadow of remorse he has tried to make us feel sorry for him.”
She, like her uncle, asked the judge to impose a stiff sentence.
The 67-year-old accused Bellefontaine man entered a guilty plea to aggravated murder via an agreement between his lawyers and the Logan County Prosecutor’s Office.
A charge of murder was dropped along with gun specifications on both murder charges. The parties also agreed that Kenton Quint would be sentenced to life in prison.
Judge Braig reviewed the agreements and imposed the life sentence with a minimum of 25 years before the defendant receives a parole hearing.
Few details of the crime were stated in open court. A primary goal of the plea agreement was to avoid traumatizing the family further with a trial and its accompanying testimony and evidence presentation.
Prosecutors had Quint’s 911 call confession and surveillance camera footage that showed the defendant retrieving a handgun which he used to shoot his 68-year-old wife 13 times in their 322 Clagg St. residence.
An investigation by the Bellefontaine Police Department revealed Quint had online communications of a sexual nature with a third party, who extorted money from him by threatening to disclose details of the sexting to his wife.
On the day of the murder, he told the third party that he would kill his wife unless the extortion stopped and sent a photo of the 9 mm handgun used in the crime.
Less than 30 minutes after that, Quint arrived home; shot his wife; then called 911; admitted to the murder; and subsequently surrendered to police.
He was given a chance to address his family prior to the sentencing.
“I just want to say how sorry I am for the pain and suffering that I have caused,” he said.
But, just as his granddaughter pointed out, he still sees himself as a victim.
“(There is) nothing I can do to bring her back or pay for this crime,” he said. “I know this will probably be the last time we ever see each other and that saddens my heart.”
