Pursuant to Ind.Appellate Rule 65(D),

this Memorandum Decision shall not be regarded as precedent or cited before any court except for t he purpose of establishing the defense of res judicata, collateral estoppel, or the law of the case.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT : ATTORNEY S FOR APPELLEE : ROBERT D. WICKENS GREGORY F. ZOELLER Wickens & Wickens, LLC Attorney General of Indiana Greensburg, Indiana
JODI KATHRYN STEIN Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana


## IN THE COUR T OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

WALDO LYNN JONES, JR., ) ) Appellant

- Defendant, ) ) vs. ) No. 16A04

- 1301

- CR

- 12 ) STATE OF INDIANA, ) ) Appellee

- Plaintiff. )

APPEAL FROM THE DECATUR SUPERIOR COURT The Honorable Matthew D. Bailey , Judge Cause No. 16D01

- 1106

- FA

- 308

August 19, 2013
MEMORANDUM DECIS ION

– NOT FOR PUBLICATION BARNES, Judge2 Case Summary Waldo Jones, Jr., appeals his sixty

- year executed sentence for murder. We affirm.
Issue
The sole issue before the court is whether Jones’s sentence is in appropriate.
Facts
T he evening of June 2 , 2011, Jones and his girlfriend, Tasha Parsons, woke up
Parsons’ s twelve

- year
- o ld son, D.P ., because they believed that D.P. had hid den Jones’s illegally obtained prescription drugs

. Jones had been living with Pa rsons for approximately a year and was helping take care of Parsons’s three children. Both Jones
and Parsons began to viciously beat D.P. in order to compel hi m to admit where the drugs

were . Over the course of twelve hours from that night into the next day , June 3, 2011,
D.P. was repeatedly beaten and tortured:

. . . . [A] cooler was used to pound [D.P.]’s head into the floor. A coffee table was used to strike [D.P.]’s head. [ D.P. ] was kicked and stomped and punched . He was hit with a belt. He was pu t in the cellar. His head was submerged in bath water at [least] three or four times. His head was held under running water. He was again kicked and burned with cigarettes. Tr. p. 86.
Parson s ’s two other children, who were seven and eight years old a t the time, were
in the household during the beating

. At one point, t he eight

- year
- old child woke up from a nap, looked up from underneath the covers, and saw D.P.’s face covered in blood.
Jones left the residence on June 3, 2011, and spoke with a friend , Kristi Schofner, a bout D.P.’s beating ; Schofner called the police.3

O fficers from the Greensburg Police Department and the Indiana State P olice along with emergency personnel were dispatched to Parsons’s house and fou nd D.P.
dead

. Parsons and her two o ther children were still in the house. D.P. had injuries over ninety percent of his body , and the Marion County Coroner later determined that the
cause of death was from “ multiple blunt force traumatic injuries from head to toe with partial thickness ther mal burns to the face. ” Id. at 43. The officers observed blood in various places inside the house. Officers transported Parsons to the Greensburg Police
Station for questioning and, after locating Jones , transported him , too

. Jones indicated
that Parso ns wa s the one who beat D.P. ; he alluded to some participation but then
retracted the statements. During Parson s ’s initial interview, she indicated that Jones was not involved in the death of D.P.; however, during the second interview on June 4, 2011,
Par sons admitted that she and Jones beat D.P. for a period of twelve hours because they
believed that D.P. ha d hidden some pills. Jones was initially charged with Class A felony neglect of a dependent. The State amended the charges to include murder and to seek a sentence of life without parole (“LWOP”) . On October 11, 2012, Jones entered a conditional guilty plea agreement
where he pled guilty to murder , and the State dismissed the Class A felony neglect of a dependent charge and the LWOP enhancement. T h e court sentenced Jones to sixty years executed. Jones now appeals. Analysis
We examine whether Jones’s sixty

- year executed sentence is inappropriate under Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B) in light of his character and the nature of the offense. Jones4

claim s that his sentence should include ten years suspended to probation . He makes arguments to his character , but provides no claims to the nature of the offense and, therefore, waives the argument. See Anderson v. State , 989 N.E.2d 823 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013). Despite his waiver , we will address his claim

. Although Rule 7(B) does not require us to be “extremely” deferential to a trial court’s sentencing decision, we still must give due consideration to that decision.
Rutherford v. State , 866 N.E.2d 867, 873 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007). We also understand and recognize the unique perspective a trial court brings to its sentencing decisions. Id. “Additionally, a defendant bears the burden of persuading the appellate court that his or her sentence is inappropriate. ” Id. The principal role of Rule 7(B) review “should be to attempt to leaven the outliers, and identify some guiding principles for trial courts and those charged with improvement of the sentencing statutes, but not to achieve a perceived ‘correct’ result in each case.”
Cardwell v. State , 895 N.E.2d 1219, 1225 (Ind. 2008). We “should focus on the forest

— the aggregate sentence

— rather than the trees

— consecutive or concurrent, number of counts, or length of the sentence on any individual count.” Id. Wheth er a sentence is inappropriate ultimately turns on the culpability of the defendant, the severity of the crime, the damage done to others, and myriad other factors that come to light in a given

case. Id. at 1224. When reviewing the appropriateness of a s entence under Rule 7(B), we may consider all aspects of the penal consequences imposed by the trial court in sentencing the defendant, including whether a portion of the sentence was suspended.
Davidson v. State , 926 N.E.2d 1023, 1025 (Ind. 2010).5

In rega rd to his character, Jones claims that a lesser sentence is warranted because
of his guilty plea and express ion of remorse for his actions. We disagree . Jones’s guilty plea was not significant because he waited until three weeks before trial to plead gui lty
and benefited with the dismiss al of the Class A felony neglect of a dependent charge and
the LWOP enhancement. Further, Jones has had prior convictions related to substance abuse, an area that played a significant role in the current egregious offense

. He had previous opportunities to address his substance abuse problem, but failed to take any
actions. Jones’s additional argument that with probation , he will have a longer period of supervision to “better ensure that [he] is not a threat to society an d provide a smoother transition . . . to society,” is ir relevant to this analysis. Appellant’s Br. p. 8.
T he court evaluated several factors to the nature of the offense , an area Jones failed to argue

. The most significant aggravator was “the harm, inj ury, loss or damage suffered by the victim . . . [which] was significant and greater than the elements necessary to prove the commission of the offense.” Tr. p. 85. The brutal and heinous

torture of D.P. was committed in D.P.’s own home, a place where a child should feel
safe , and in the presence of other children . Further, Jones was in a position of care, custody, or control of D.P. when he committed the crime

. Conclusion Jones’s character and the egregious nature of the offense were sufficient to wa rrant
his sentence. We affirm.
Affirmed. KIRSCH, J., and VAIDIK, J., concur.