YOUNGSTOWN – Judge Anthony D’Apolito said he would have liked to sentence Brandon Crump Jr., 21, to life in prison without parole for killing 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney, but he is as aware as anyone that Ohio law would not allow that or even the type of sentence prosecutors recommended.

But he landed on 52-years-to-life in prison because it is the most he could give Crump without going beyond the amount the Ohio Legislature has ruled a person who committed a murder as a juvenile can get. Crump was sentenced this afternoon.

Crump was the final of three defendants sentenced in the Sept. 21, 2020, killing of Rowan and the shootings four adults in a home in Struthers in what started out as a robbery.

Read more in Tuesday’s Vindicator.