ASHLAND — “Guilty, your honor.”
The three words rang out 11 times in the northwest corner of the Ashland County Common Pleas court Friday as Ryan Stroup answered Judge Ron Forsthoefel’s question: “How do you plea?”
Stroup, 31, of Ashland, pleaded guilty to 11 counts related to the January 2021 murder of Tina Louise Goad, a 41-year-old single mother of three from Shelby.
Stroup’s guilty plea came about a month before the murder case was set to go to trial. He plead not guilty in January 2021.
Forsthoefel sentenced Stroup to life in prison with a chance of parole after 52 1/2 years. Had he been found guilty after a trial, Ashland County Prosecutor Chris Tunnell said Stroup could have faced the death penalty.
“This is him avoiding the death penalty,” Ashland County Prosecutor Chris Tunnell said moments after the hearing.
Part of the plea agreement, Tunnell said, included the prosecutors dismissing the death-penalty specifications for a guilty plea.
Tunnell said he was satisfied with Stroup’s sentence.
“That’s a long time. What will he be, 84, when he first comes up for parole? So that’s not a release date, that’s when they first look at him for parole. That’s a long time,” the prosecutor said.
Before Forsthoefel delivered Stroup’s sentence, Goad’s sister, Trisha Kareff read an emotional statement that prompted tears from the audience, including Ashland Police Detective Kim Mager. She was the first officer to interview Stroup when they found him in a motel in Cleveland shortly after Goad’s murder.
In her statement, Kareff did not name her sister’s killer. She instead referred to him as “the monster” and a “coward” who took her sister’s life.
Kareff described the horror she and her family experienced the day Goad’s body was found in a wooded area off County Road 1600. Some of the family went to the Ashland Police Department, others went looking, she said.
“It was then (we were) told they found a deceased female in a wooded area and couldn’t, at that time, tell us if it was our sister. As the tears rolled down my face, I knew deep down in my heart it was my only sister’s body they found in the woods,” she said, fighting tears.
Kareff said Goad’s eldest daughter, who Kareff said has a developmental disability, was in disbelief when she told her that her mom had passed away in a car accident.
“We had to tell her that her mom died in a car accident, because that was more easy for her to understand — the sound of her voice as we broke the news, ‘No, I don’t want my mom to die,’ ” Kareff said, her voice shaking with emotion.
As Kareff read the statement, Stroup’s head bent slightly downward. His eyes gazed toward the floor. His posture did not break for the entirety of Kareff’s five-minute statement.
Stroup, donned in a yellow jumpsuit and cuffed, also read from a statement while sitting with his attorneys, Terry Hitchman and James Mayer III.
He said he was sorry for taking Goad’s life and that he has reflected on what he did every day.
“I came to court today and plead guilty because I did this,” he read, his voice steady, stoic. “I’m sorry for taking Tina away from her family, from her children and the rest of her family. This was a senseless and horrific act.”
He said he hopes his guilty plea provides some closure to Goad’s family. He said he plans to seek mental health and alcohol-abuse treatment while incarcerated. Stroup said he takes prescription drugs to treat anxiety and depression.
“I also plan on attending church and getting a job,” Stroup said, which prompted someone in the audience to scoff.
“I will involve myself in as much programming as possible to try to live as productive of a life as I can while living within the prison.”
Forsthoefel informed Stroup of the consequences of bad behavior in prison, which could tack on up to five additional years before qualifying for parole.
If he has “exceptional conduct” while imprisoned, he could shave time off his sentence, Forsthoefel said.
Goad’s and Stroup’s family members were present during the hearing, as well as several police officers involved in the case.
