'You took my life-long best friend': Murderer receives 92-year prison sentence
LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Leon Chew Jr.'s family and friends wrote letters to Tippecanoe Superior 2 Judge Steve Meyer painting Chew, a convicted murderer, as a virtuous person and a good family man.
Meyer didn't buy it.
"This court rejects that," Meyer said to Chew, who killed his longtime girlfriend and the mother of his three sons. "You are no family man."
Chew killed Germanine Thomas early Jan. 22, 2021, inside their home in the 2400 block of Union Street while Thomas' five children — the youngest three are Chew's — were inside the house. Then he woke the two teenagers and had them deal with their dead mother while he ran away.
"Even the 4-year-old had to see what Daddy did to Mommy," Meyer said. "You are no family man.
"I think that speaks a lot about your character and contradicts what people want me to think of you."
In contrast, Germanine Thomas' sister, Jacalyn Fletcher, gave an emotional account of the loss of her sister.
"You took my life-long best friend," Fletcher said, "You took away my breath, my heart," she said, recalling how she and Thomas' last words to each other were of their love for one another just an hour or so before Chew killed Thomas.
"Life will never be the same for me or my sister," Fletcher said, referring to her other surviving sister.
Adding to Chew's apparent lack of remorse, prosecutors entered a recording of a jailhouse phone call made after his July 28 convictions. During the phone call, Chew spoke of his attraction to one of the jurors and his sexual arousal in the courtroom during his trial.
Meyer tried to look for something redeeming about Chew to contrast his long criminal history, his treatment of Thomas, his lack of employment, his sponging off Thomas for food, housing and to raise his boys.
There was only that he had family support.
After weighing the good and the bad, Meyer sentenced Chew to a total of 92 years in prison.
For murder, Chew will serve 65 years in prison. Running concurrent with that sentence is a five-year sentence for possession of a handgun without a license with a previous conviction.
Running consecutive to the murder sentence is a two-year sentence for obstruction of justice, a 15-year sentence for being a habitual offender and a 10-year sentence for using a firearm in the commission of a crime.
None of the 92-year sentence was suspended.
Chew, who is 39, will have to serve 75% of the sentence before he can be released. That's 69 years.
Given the time he's already served awaiting trial, Chew will be 106 before he finishes serving his sentence.
Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette murderer, Leon Chew Jr., receives 92-year prison sentence
