We've posted on this case many times. What is not mentioned here: TERRY STURGIS was a custodial father. The local media has never bothered to explain how this convicted killer got custody, and who gave it to him.
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/crime/article/Court-upholds-Indiana-father-s-murder-conviction-4627315.php
Court upholds Indiana father's murder conviction
By CHARLES WILSON, Associated Press
Updated 2:27 pm, Thursday, June 27, 2013
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An appeals court on Thursday rejected an argument from an Indiana man who said he didn't realize that beating his 10-year-old son into unconsciousness and burning him repeatedly with a clothes iron might kill him.
The Indiana Court of Appeals declined to reduce Terry Sturgis' murder conviction in the 2011 death of his son Tramelle. A jury in South Bend also convicted Sturgis of several counts of battery, neglect and criminal confinement for abusing his two other sons, ages 9 and 14 at the time. A St. Joseph County judge who sentenced Sturgis to 140 years in prison in June 2012 said she wished she could make the sentence longer.
Sturgis argued in his appeal that prosecutors didn't prove that he "knowingly and intentionally" killed another person, as required by Indiana's murder statute.
In his appeal, Sturgis acknowledged that he had beaten Tramelle over a span of several months but said he didn't realize that beating the boy for hours with a one-inch thick wooden rod was likely to cause the child's death. He also said the boy's injuries could have resulted from a fall down the stairs.