{"id":51346,"date":"2014-05-03T08:03:49","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T13:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=51346"},"modified":"2014-05-03T08:05:02","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T13:05:02","slug":"menke-pleads-guilty-to-murdering-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2014\/05\/03\/menke-pleads-guilty-to-murdering-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"Menke pleads guilty to murdering mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/b>independent editor<\/i><\/p>\n

A woman who pleaded guilty Friday to charges related to the shooting death of her mother could spend the rest of her life in prison when sentenced later this month.<\/p>\n

Tamara K. Menke, 48, of Ohio City, entered guilty pleas to one count each of murder, downgraded from aggravated murder, and felonious assault, a felony of the second degree. Each charge also includes a firearms specification that carries with it a mandatory one-year prison term served consecutively to any other sentence. Three other charges, attempted murder, aggravated burglary and burglary, were dismissed in exchange for Menke\u2019s guilty plea to the above counts.<\/p>\n

\"Tamara<\/a>
Tamara Menke, 48, is shown in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court back in March for a hearing that determined she was competent to stand trial. (VW independent file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Menke could face a minimum of 17 years in prison to life plus 10 years on the two charges, which stem from the shooting death of Menke\u2019s mother, Barbara Robinson, and the wounding of her father, John Robinson, on November 14, 2013. The shootings took place at the Robinsons\u2019 residence at 223 S. Fulton St. in Van Wert.<\/p>\n

Sentencing will occur at 9 a.m. Friday, May 16, in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court.<\/p>\n

After shooting her parents, Menke fled the area and was later captured without incident near her Ohio City residence approximately 15 hours later.<\/p>\n

She had originally sought a competency hearing as a prelude to entering a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but Judge Charles D. Steele found her competent to stand trial at a hearing on March 21, based on reports from two separate psychiatrists: one working for the Court Diagnostics & Treatment Center in Toledo and the other employed at Twin Valley Behavioral Health Center, where Menke was hospitalized following her arrest.<\/p>\n

Menke is currently being held in the Van Wert County Correctional Facility on a $1 million dollar bond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor A woman who pleaded guilty Friday to charges related to the shooting death of her mother could spend the rest of her life in prison when sentenced later this month. Tamara K. Menke, 48, of Ohio City, entered guilty pleas to one count each of murder, downgraded from aggravated murder, and felonious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 08:30:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}