Man sentenced to 40 years for 2018 murder

Dec. 13—"He took my son away. Holidays suck. Birthdays suck. Mother's Days suck. I'll never have none of that back."

Diane Webb spoke those words Tuesday morning with tears streaking down her face, her hands trembling, during the sentencing hearing for the man who pleaded guilty to murdering her 23-year-old son.

In July, Marshall Ratliff, 28, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the death of Joshua Webb on July 23, 2018.

"I'd just like him to know how much he ruined my life," said Diane Webb in Raleigh County Circuit Court Judge Andrew Dimlich's courtroom.

"My life ain't gonna never ever gonna be the same ... I want him to have the maximum he's supposed to have. I don't want no mercy."

Despite pleas from Ratliff's defense attorneys asking for reduced sentencing given Ratliff's many mental disorders, Dimlich sentenced Ratliff to 40 years in prison, which is the maximum sentence under state code for second-degree murder.

"The other thing I find disconcerting today is I see no remorse on yourself whatsoever," Dimlich said to Ratliff as he handed down the sentence.

"I was watching you. I didn't see that you had any reaction when the mother testified about the effects this has had on her life and her family's life. They've been devastated by this action. That's probably what I find most troubling on this matter. Based upon that, I find that you're hereby sentenced to a penitentiary of this state for a determinate sentence of 40 years."

While Ratliff's defense attorneys were unsuccessful in their pleas for a shorter sentence, the judge agreed to have Ratliff sentenced to a state jail other than Southern Regional Jail, which is located in Raleigh County.

Ratliff's defense attorney Stanley Selden said Ratliff was receiving treatment at William R. Sharpe, Jr. Hospital in the time leading up to this hearing for his psychological disorders.

Selden said doctors at Sharpe Hospital had diagnosed Ratliff with intermittent explosive disorder among other things and prescribed him a regimen of medications which Southern Regional Jail refused to administer correctly to Ratliff.

"They insist on crushing his time release medication in which case Mr. Ratliff rightly refuses to take that medication because it can have significant effects on him," Selden said. "This court has ordered the Southern Regional Jail not to crush his medication, to give it to him as prescribed, and they have repeatedly refused to do that, which has had some significant effects on Mr. Ratliff."

Ratliff's second defense attorney Todd Houck said Ratliff was transported from Sharpe Hospital in Weston, W.Va., to Southern Regional Jail Monday night.

Houck said Ratliff informed him prior to Tuesday's sentencing hearing that he had not received any of his medications from Southern Regional Jail since his arrival.

"This community and this court is aware of what's going on at Southern Regional Jail," Houck said. "And for a normal person to make it at Southern Regional Jail, it's pretty hard. There's been several deaths out there. There's been several injuries. So I would ask the court through its compassion to send him back to Sharpe (Hospital) to await his assignment ... to keep him medicated properly before entry into the Division of Corrections."

Dimlich said he did not have jurisdiction to sentence Ratliff to Sharpe Hospital but, upon the suggestion of Houck, he would sentence Ratliff to serve out his time at Northern Regional Jail with the hope that this jail would correctly administer Ratliff's medications.

Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Ben Hatfield said he had no issue with this request from the defense attorney though he did feel Ratliff deserves the maximum sentence for the charge of second-degree murder given his actions on the night he killed Joshua Webb as well as his attitude throughout the case.

"He left the decedent (Joshua) Webb to die on the wheelchair ramp to the Executive Manor (apartments)," Hatfield said in a statement to media following the hearing. "And since that point in time, he's failed to take responsibility for the course of his actions. Even through the presentence investigative portion of the case, he made statements that he didn't really do this, despite having taken the plea and entering in an admission to having done it."

Ratliff has been in prison since 2018 for shooting and killing Webb at the Executive Manor apartments on Main Street in downtown Beckley in July 2018.

According to an article from 2018 when The Register-Herald first reported on this case, police alleged that Ratliff admitted to shooting Joshua Webb because he allegedly "didn't like the way Joshua Webb looked at his girlfriend."

Angus Bonetto Moodie Jr., 42, was also charged in Webb's death for his part in helping to conceal the gun Ratliff used.

Moodie pleaded guilty in October 2019 to the felony of accessory after the fact to first-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Moodie was sentenced to five years on each consecutively for a 10-year penitentiary sentence.

During Ratliff's sentencing hearing Tuesday, Houck argued that Ratliff's troubled past, "issues around his competency" and "many psychological problems" played a part in his actions during the shooting and during his case.

"Mr. Ratliff was born in Beckley. He had a very dysfunctional childhood. He described poverty, troubled parents, physical violence in the home," Houck said. "He was placed in numerous out-of-home placements for the remainder of his youth. He was in numerous child treatment facilities and adult mental health centers. He has been in and out of the mental health facilities in and around our state throughout his life."

Houck added that although there is no denying that a man is dead and Ratliff played his part in that, he never set out to kill Webb.

"The heaviest sentences are for people who set out and planned to kill someone. That's lacking in this case," Houck said. "This isn't an accident. Everyone in this room knows this wasn't an accident. But it's something less than the cold calculation of a killer."

Hatfield said Ratliff's mental health was addressed multiple times throughout this case and experts determined that Ratliff was component and criminally responsible for his crime, which means "he had the cognitive function to form the intent" to commit the crime.

When asked by media to address the allegations from the defense attorneys that Ratliff was not receiving his medications at Southern Regional Jail, Hatfield said those allegations have not been proven.

He added that the judge ordered Ratliff to serve out his sentence at Northern Regional Jail, located in West Virginia's Northern Panhandle, in order to "avoid the issue entirely in this case."

Hatfield then declined to make any more comment regarding Southern Regional Jail.

Southern Regional Jail has been under scrutiny this year following a number of inmate deaths.

In September, a federal class action lawsuit was filed against Southern Regional Jail alleging deplorable and unsafe conditions as well as the mistreatment of inmates, which included withholding medical care.

The state has yet to make any public comment on the suit but is expected to file a response to the lawsuit in coming weeks.