MEMORANDUM DECISION

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this 

Memorandum Decision shall not be regarded as 

precedent or cited before any court except for the 

purpose of establishing the defense of res judicata, 

collateral estoppel, or the law of the case.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT

Laura Paul

Indianapolis, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Gregory F. Zoeller

Attorney General of Indiana

George P. Sherman

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Earl Edwards,

Appellant-Defendant,

v.

State of Indiana,

Appellee-Plaintiff

July 22, 2015

Court of Appeals Case No.

61A01-1411-CR-502

Appeal from the Parke Circuit Court

The Honorable Samuel A. Swaim, 

Judge

Case No. 61C01-1306-MR-144

Crone, Judge.

Case Summary

[1] Earl Edwards appeals the sixty-year sentence imposed by the trial court 

following his guilty plea to murder, class B felony criminal confinement, and 

class D felony theft. He contends that the trial court abused its discretion 

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during sentencing. Specifically, he asserts that the trial court failed to identify 

and consider his guilty plea as a significant mitigating factor. Finding no abuse 

of discretion, and also concluding that his sentence is not inappropriate, we 

affirm. 

Facts and Procedural History

[2] On June 13, 2013, Edwards tied up Kathryn Bays and confined her without her 

consent. He then stabbed her forty-six times with a knife. He also bludgeoned 

her in the head multiple times with a hammer, stole her credit card, and left her 

lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor of her Parke County home. 

Edwards fled to Georgia. The following day, Edwards called Parke County 

authorities and informed them that he and Bays had been in an altercation, that 

he stabbed her, and that he knew that she was dead when he left her residence. 

Edwards turned himself in to Georgia police. After he was transported back to 

Indiana, Edwards was interviewed by detectives at the Parke County Sheriff’s 

Office. Edwards stated that he and Bays were in a romantic relationship and 

that he believed she was having an affair and was planning to kick him out of 

her residence. Edwards informed the detectives that he had told a friend that if 

Bays ever kicked him out that he would “tie her up, f**k her, kill her and then 

kill hisself [sic].” Sentencing Tr. at 9. He admitted that he followed through 

with that threat and murdered Bays.

[3] The State charged Edwards with murder, class B felony criminal confinement, 

and class D felony theft. Thereafter, Edwards pled guilty as charged. Pursuant 

to the plea agreement, sentencing was left to the trial court’s discretion, but the 

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State agreed that, in exchange for the guilty plea, Edwards would receive 

concurrent sentences. Following a hearing, the trial court imposed concurrent 

sentences of sixty years for murder, ten years for criminal confinement, and one 

and one-half years for theft. This appeal ensued.

Discussion and Decision

Edwards claims that the trial court abused its discretion during sentencing by

failing to identify and consider his guilty plea as a significant mitigating factor. 

Sentencing decisions rest within the sound discretion of the trial court. 

Anglemyer v. State, 868 N.E.2d 482, 490 (Ind. 2007), clarified on reh’g, 875 N.E.2d 

218. So long as the sentence is within the statutory range, it is subject to review 

only for an abuse of discretion. Id. An abuse of discretion occurs if the 

decision is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances 

before the court or the reasonable, probable, and actual deductions to be drawn 

therefrom. Id. at 491. A trial court abuses its discretion during sentencing by: 

(1) failing to enter a sentencing statement at all; (2) entering a sentencing 

statement that includes aggravating and mitigating factors that are unsupported 

by the record; (3) entering a sentencing statement that omits reasons that are 

clearly supported by the record; or (4) entering a sentencing statement that 

includes reasons that are improper as a matter of law. Id. at 490-91.

[4] In its opinion on rehearing in Anglemyer, our supreme court noted that:

a defendant who pleads guilty deserves “some” mitigating weight be 

given to the plea in return. But an allegation that the trial court failed 

to identify or find a mitigating factor requires the defendant to 

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establish that the mitigating evidence is not only supported by the 

record but also that the mitigating evidence is significant. And the 

significance of a guilty plea as a mitigating factor varies from case to 

case. For example, a guilty plea may not be significantly mitigating 

when it does not demonstrate the defendant’s acceptance of 

responsibility, or when the defendant receives a substantial benefit in 

return for the plea.

875 N.E.2d at 221 (citations omitted).

[5] Here, faced with a murder charge and a class B and a class D felony, Edwards 

was exposed to a potential maximum sentence of eighty-eight years. In 

exchange for his guilty plea, he received the promise of concurrent sentencing, 

meaning he reduced his maximum exposure by at least twenty-three years.1

This was a substantial benefit. In addition, the evidence against Edwards was 

overwhelming as he was in a relationship with the victim, he conveyed to a 

friend prior to the murder that he planned to commit the murder, and he 

eventually turned himself in to authorities and admitted to the gory details of 

his crime. We disagree with his claim that his “consistent expression of 

remorse and acceptance of responsibility” obligated the trial court to assign 

significant mitigating weight to his guilty plea. Appellant’s Br. at 8. Our 

review of the record reveals that Edwards’s decision to plead guilty was much 

more likely the result of pragmatism than true acceptance of responsibility. We 

conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by omitting reference to 

1 We note that the trial court imposed a sixty-year aggregate sentence, which was even five years lower than 

the maximum Edwards could have received under the plea agreement.

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Edwards’s guilty plea when imposing his sentence and in declining to find it 

significant.

[6] Moreover, even if a trial court abuses its discretion in its findings or nonfindings of aggravators and mitigators, we may choose to review the 

appropriateness of a sentence under Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B) instead of 

remanding to the trial court. See Windhorst v. State, 868 N.E.2d 504, 507 (Ind. 

2007). Pursuant to Rule 7(B), we may revise a sentence authorized by statute if, 

after due consideration of the trial court’s decision, we find that the sentence “is 

inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the 

offender.” Whether we regard a sentence as inappropriate at the end of the day 

turns on “our sense of the culpability of the defendant, the severity of the crime, 

the damage done to others, and myriad other facts that come to light in a given 

case.” Cardwell v. State, 895 N.E.2d 1219, 1224 (Ind. 2008). The defendant 

bears the burden to persuade this Court that his or her sentence is inappropriate. 

Childress v. State, 848 N.E.2d 1073, 1080 (Ind. 2006).

[7] We need look no further than the nature of Edwards’s offenses to be convinced 

that his aggregate sixty-year sentence is not inappropriate. First, Edwards tied 

Bays up and confined her without her consent. He proceeded to stab her fortysix times with a knife and bludgeon her in the head multiple times with a 

hammer. He then stole her credit card and left the home. Her body was 

eventually discovered lying on the blood-covered kitchen floor of her home. 

The autopsy indicates that Bays torturously endured the forty-six stab wounds 

to her body before dying from “open head injuries secondary to multiple blows 

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to the head” consistent with being hit with a hammer. State’s Ex. 1. Given 

that the nature of these crimes was incredibly violent and that the advisory 

sentence for murder is fifty-five years,

2 under the circumstances, a sixty-year 

aggregate sentence is not inappropriate. Edwards has not demonstrated that a 

sentence revision is warranted.

[8] Affirmed. 

May, J., and Bradford, J., concur.

2 Ind. Code § 35-50-2-3

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