DAYTON — A Dayton man received two consecutive life sentences on Friday for the 2019 murders of a Mansfield couple and their unborn child, according to a report published in the Dayton Daily News.
Larry Dwayne Rogers, 33, was sentenced in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court for the shooting deaths of Kayla Hayton, 20, and her boyfriend, Todd Burkhart, 28, who were reported missing on Nov. 16, 2019.
The couple lived in Mansfield but both were from Ashland, according to the Mansfield News Journal.
A jury on Jan. 28 found Rogers of four counts of aggravated murder; four counts of murder; four counts of kidnapping; four counts of felonious assault; and two counts of involuntary manslaughter, each with a three-year gun specification.
He also was found guilty of one count of having weapons while under disability for a prior offense of violence.
The Dayton Daily News reported Rodgers will not be eligible for parole consideration until he has spent at least 72 years in prison.
“This was a tragic and senseless homicide case that took the lives of two young adults and their unborn child. This defendant will now spend the rest of his life in prison,” Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. said.
Burkhart and Hayton, who was five months pregnant with a baby boy, reportedly told family they’d be traveling to Dayton, possibly to purchase a firearm for a friend as protection.
They dropped off her daughter with family in Columbus before heading to Dayton. The couple was to return Nov. 17, 2019.
Burkhart’s body was found Nov. 22, 2019, in a vacant West Stewart Street house in Dayton. Three days later, on Nov. 25, 2019, Hayton’s body was found with the help of cadaver dogs in another vacant house on West Stewart Street.
According to the Dayton Daily News, Montgomery County Coroner Dr. Kent Harshbarger said at the time that Burkhart and Hayton were each shot in the head. Although Hayton was hit by multiple gunshots, her unborn child was not hit by bullets but died because Hayton died, the coroner said.
The case was delayed multiple times due to the pandemic and numerous court motions. Rodgers was not indicted in the deaths until March 2020, with his trial finally taking place in January.
The involuntary manslaughter charges were because the shooting death of Hayton “caused the unlawful termination of her pregnancy,” according to prosecutors.
