After prosecutors say a man released last year on parole held a woman and baby at knifepoint during a recent home invasion in Mishawaka, many people are outraged. They wonder how he could be free after murdering a child 30 years ago.
Prosecutors say Stephen Sherwood stabbed his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend on New Year’s Eve before holding a knife to her throat as she held her two-month-old grandson.
Sherwood had been convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s 4-year-old daughter, Hope Barrett, in Martinsville in 1995. Many in Michiana now can’t understand how he’s free.
Prosecutors initially sought the death penalty but the jury only came back with a sentence of life without parole. The Indiana Supreme Court reversed his conviction because the judge wouldn’t let him act as his own attorney. Prosecutors then retried him and sought life without parole since the law prohibits seeking the death penalty in a retrial.
The jury again convicted but allowed the chance for parole. He received the maximum 65-year term for murder.
But Sherwood didn’t have to convince a parole board for his release in 2024. A 2014 law requires violent felons to serve at least 70% of their term, but Sherwood was grandfathered under the former law that let inmates out after serving just half their sentence with good behavior in prison.
