ELYRIA — An appeals court on Monday upheld Shawn Kelley’s aggravated murder conviction and 31-years-to-life prison sentence.

Kelley was convicted in 2006 of raping and killing Tanya Kennedy on New Year’s Day 2005 and then trying to kill two other people sleeping off the effects of a New Year’s Eve party at Chuck Baker’s Amherst Township home.

Attorneys for Kelley, 30, had argued county Common Pleas Judge Christopher Rothgery should have thrown out the aggravated murder charge because of lack of evidence, because Rothgery allowed the charges stemming from Kennedy’s death to be tried at the same time as the other attacks and because of other errors by Rothgery.

The 9th District Court of Appeals didn’t agree with those assertions, or Kelley’s arguments he was convicted without enough evidence.

 

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