DAYTON — A 28-year-old Dayton man will serve life in prison with the possibility of parole after he strangled his girlfriend to death inside a Uhrig Avenue apartment in April 2019.
Kendall D. Beasley was sentenced for the murder Shanika Bogan, 31, of Dayton. He won’t be eligible to be considered for parole for at least 25 years, prosecutors said.
>> Mother of Dayton woman police say was murdered while children were home speaks out
“The pair had reportedly been dating since the defendant was released from prison approximately three weeks before the homicide,” the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office said in a prepared statement. “Witnesses, including the victim’s children, identified the defendant as the last person seen with the victim.”
“It’s unbelievable that it really happened,” Bogan’s mother Tracie Berry told News Center 7 after the killing. “Shanika wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Berry said she first became concerned when she did not receive a usual text message from her daughter. She drove over to Bogan’s house, she said, to find her dead inside the apartment, where the children were.
Dayton Police Lt. Jason Hall said Bogan and Beasley had known each other a short time, and that Beasley appeared to be pursuing a romantic relationship, unwanted by Bogan.
Berry said her grandson was able to describe some of what happened.
“He told my oldest grandson, ‘I’m going to give your mama a massage,’” Berry said. “I know he went in the bedroom and shut the door … and he came out told my grandson, ‘She’s taking a nap – get (yourself) some cereal to snack on and I’ll be back’ … and left.”
Berry, and her son – Bogan’s brother, William Bogan, called on Beasley to turn himself in after the homicide.
“He’s the devil,” Berry said.
William Bogan remembers a sister he said could never be mad at anyone.
“She was a sweetheart,” he said. “Like, literally the nicest person you will ever meet.”
Berry admits, life will never be the same, especially for her grandsons.
“She did everything for those boys,” she said. “It’s devastating. It really is.”