Clayton Phillips was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Monday after admitting he murdered his 81-year-old grandmother in January 2014.
“I feel terrible, I realy do,” Phillips told Geauga County Common Pleas Court Judge Forrest Burt. “If I could do it all over again, I would just change my life and not end up doing what I did.”
He added, “I’m really sorry. I loved her. She was the only person that cared for me, looked out for me and really, truly loved me unconditionally, and I just feel God awful.”
Burt called Phillips a “frightening young man” and said he considered him a psychopath.
“You’re cold, you’re calculating, you’re a very bright young man, and that’s part of what frightens me about you,” Burt told Phillips, noting he was under the influence of drugs when he killed Ruth Phillips in her Russell Township home. “But that explain buying the hatchet, it doesn’t explain the calendar. That just was liquid or pill courage to get you there.”
Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz had introduced evidence of a hand-written calendar found on Phillips after he was arrested. In the block for Jan. 20, 2014, Phillips wrote, “Kill Gram.”
Complete coverage of Monday’s courtroom events will appear in the April 9 issue of the Geauga County Maple Leaf.