"Like Logan didn't matter.' Slain boy's big sister, others protest nurse's assault sentence
An Indiana nurse was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for the assaults on the two sisters and the father of 6-year-old Logan Tipton, the Versailles boy who was stabbed to death in his bed.
The sentencing was preceded by a march through downtown Versailles of about 150 Tipton relatives and supporters who protested a jury’s verdict last month that found Ronald Exantus not guilty by reason of insanity for the murder of the kindergartner and the burglary of the Tipton house.
In a decision criticized by family and prosecutors as inconsistent, the jury found Exantus, 34, guilty but mentally ill on the assaults. Had he been found guilty of murder, Exantus could have faced the death penalty.
"Justice for Logan! Justice for Logan!" the marchers chanted as they walked in a light drizzling rain down a couple of blocks on Main Street to the Woodford County Courthouse.
At the courthouse, Logan’s mother, Heather Pujol Tipton, asked for a moment of silence to remember Logan. Then the boy’s great-aunt, Joyce Kinder, led the crowd in a chant that the jury verdict "Did not fit the crime! Did not fit the crime!"
Before sentencing, Special Judge Phil Patton again denied a defense motion to have Exantus found not guilty by reason of insanity on the assaults as well. Patton had previously ruled against that motion, but the defense asked the judge to reconsider.
Had that defense motion been successful, Exantus would have served no prison time but would have faced possible involuntary commitment to a mental hospital.
The crimes occurred after Exantus, a dialysis nurse, drove from Indianapolis to Versailles, a place he’d never been, entered the unlocked Tipton household before dawn, and stabbed Logan in the head while the boy was in bed on Dec. 7, 2015.
A defense psychologist testified at trial that Exantus suffered from psychosis due to an underlying mental illness.
Logan’s older sister, Koral Tipton; mother; and father, Dean Tipton, all spoke in the courtroom before final sentencing.
“I want you to know that you are lucky that me and my dad didn’t kill you” during the struggle after Logan was stabbed, Koral Tipton said. She also said jurors “acted like Logan didn’t matter.”
Dean Tipton said the verdict is an example “of what’s wrong with America today.” Mass shootings happen, he said, because those who shoot don’t fear punishment.
“They’re not scared of the time they’re going to get,” Dean Tipton said.
Heather Tipton told Exantus “when you murdered my son, you slaughtered my entire family. ...None of us are the same.”
Heather Tipton said she will one day forgive Exantus for her sake, not for his.
“You have rocked this whole community, this whole town,” Heather Tipton said. “You did that by your own choices.”
Exantus did not make any statement before sentencing.
“You had plenty to say that night!” Koral Tipton suddenly said in the courtroom before descending into tears. She was silenced by relatives.
Judge Patton ordered that Exantus receive mental health treatment during his incarceration.
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