Teen gets life sentence for beating death

BELLEFONTAINE, Ohio (AP) -- A 17-year-old boy who pleaded guilty to beating a 72-year-old woman to death after he escaped from a group home for troubled teens was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison.
Christopher Tindall was convicted as an adult in Logan County Common Pleas Court of killing Joan Green in her home Christmas Eve last year. He is eligible for parole in 30 years.
Judge Mark O'Connor also ordered that Tindall be classified as a sexual predator.
Prosecutors said Tindall entered Green's home, two doors down from the group home, looking for money and valuables, when she surprised him and began screaming. Green's body was found in her bedroom under some bloody blankets.
Green's six adult children were in the courtroom Tuesday, wearing buttons with their mother's picture and the words "We love you."
"We not only lost our mom that day," her son, John Green, said in court. "We lost our family home. We lost every Christmas season for the rest of our lives. We lost it all."
In exchange for Tindall's pleading guilty to aggravated murder in September, charges of rape, aggravated burglary, breaking and entering and abuse of a corpse were dismissed.
Tindall was sent to the group home after he was paroled in a 2003 case in which he entered the juvenile equivalent of a guilty plea to raping a girl. The home has since been closed.