Snapchat killer who posted fatal beating, stabbing on social media sentenced
A man who admitted to beating and stabbing another man to death before posting videos of the attack on Snapchat will never be a free man again.
Timothy Kendrick, 35, received a sentence of life in prison without any opportunity for parole from Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Andy Miller for the July 16, 2021, death of 30-year-old Drew Mendelbaum.
But before Kendrick learned his fate, he asked Miller to have mercy on him.
"Give me one more chance. This experience is making me the best version of myself, I just need one more chance," Kendrick said, after citing a number of legal issues he believed existed in how his two previous attorneys handled his case.
But Miller said it was worth noting more than once how Kendrick physically and mentally tortured Mendelbaum for hours before leaving his body in a hotel room for more than a day before setting it on fire — all with a "complete absence of a credible reason for his actions."
Miller said the "rage and savagery" displayed on Snapchat videos Kendrick posted and sent to family members of his assault on Mendelbaum is some of the most serious conduct imaginable.
"Regret is not remorse. Regret is feeling sorry for yourself, it is not sympathy for those you have done wrong," Miller said. "The defendant has not really taken responsibility for anything. He still invokes a victim stance. He insists he tortured and killed a man and put it all on social media because he was drugged and someone tried to steal his wallet."
Miller said he found Kendrick to have no credibility and Kendrick's casualness after killing Mendelbaum, demonstrated in the Snapchat videos posted by Kendrick hours after the murder, contributed to his decision to impose the maximum sentence allowable in the case.
Kendrick was not charged in a way that would have allowed a jury to consider the death penalty, Miller noted.
Dr. Gail Herman, Mendelbaum's mother, told Miller that she knew her son wasn't perfect, but no one deserved what was done to Mendelbaum.
"My only consolation is that he’s now at peace," Herman said. "I think how he suffered alone in his last minutes and how it must have been awful for him."
Kendrick entered guilty pleas to all of the charges against him on June 13, after two days of testimony in his trial and about 90 videos from Snapchat had been played for the jury, including about 70 showing the assault.
Kendrick admitted to aggravated murder, murder, tampering with evidence, kidnapping and abuse of a corpse. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility for parole.
The videos showed Kendrick, who had met Mendelbaum for the first time at a Northwest Side gas station shortly before the killing, threatening a bloodied Mendelbaum, standing over and yelling at him, and holding a knife to Mendelbaum's throat.
Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Cory Helffrich said Snapchat videos the jury never viewed showed Kendrick stomping on Mendelbaum's unconscious body, boasting in the mirror about what he had done and cleaning up the scene after Mendelbaum was dead. Some of those videos were played during Thursday's sentencing hearing.
One of the videos played Thursday showed a shirtless Kendrick in a bathroom partaking in a motion consistent with pleasuring himself while Mendelbaum's blood is on his face and hands.
The 10-second video clips the jury did see showed Kendrick giving Mendelbaum a bag of frozen food and a towel or shirt to help with the bleeding and swelling on Mendelbaum's face. In one video, Kendrick gave Mendelbaum a fist bump before the next video, which shows Kendrick yelling at Mendelbaum.
Other video clips showed Mendelbaum, bleeding from both sides of his head and with a swollen face, attempting to reason with Kendrick, saying the two men should go outside and smoke a cigarette.
Mendelbaum never left the hotel room alive.
An autopsy revealed he had more than 40 stab and cut injuries, including his throat being slashed. His body, zip-tied at the ankles, wrapped in a shower curtain and stuffed in a bag, had been set on fire outside an office building on Sawmill Road.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Snapchat killer who posted fatal beating sentenced to life in prison
