aron Meikle, while waiting for Mahoning County Common Pleas C

YOUNGSTOWN — A man convicted of murder last week will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Vashuad May, 22, of Youngstown, learned his fate Monday morning after a jury convicted him

of aggravated murder and first-degree murder with firearms specifications on Thursday in the April 2022 shooting death of Rawsheem Aponte, 24, on Mohawk Avenue in Youngstown.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Scott Krichbaum sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole.

The jury also found him guilty on three counts each of attempted murder with firearm specifications, three counts of felonious assault with firearm specifications, and a felony charge of possessing weapons while under disability.

In addition to killing Aponte, May also shot Aponte’s fiancee, Rikya Wright, and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter. Both survived.

Before passing sentence, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum heard from Wright.

“He was my best friend, my kids’ best friend,” she said. (May) took the best part of my life, the best part of my kids’ lives.”

Wright said she and the children are still traumatized, but “I still have to get up every day and be their mother, because I am the only parent they have.”

Wright said the memory of the murder will never leave her, but she continues to try to move forward.

“This is a chapter of my life that I have to let go, because it’s full of hate,” she said.

During sentencing, the prosecution stipulated to merging the felonious assault convictions with the attempted murder convictions, meaning May was only sentenced on the latter. The same was done with the murder count, merging it with the aggravated murder conviction.

All of the firearms specifications, eight in all, were combined, adding a mandatory three years to be served before the rest of the sentence commences.

On the non-murder felonies, Krichbaum sentenced May to 11 years each, along with an added 5.5 years required by state statutes. The total sentence for those charges amounts to 38.5 years on top of the firearm specification term, to be served before the life sentence begins.

“I’ve been on this bench for 34 years, and people always ask me ‘what’s the worst case you’ve seen?'” he said. “I would hate to try to recount all the horrific examples of man’s inhumanity to man. This is as bad as it gets.”

Krichbaum expressed disgust that May “hunted” the car and fired repeatedly into it – investigators found more than 60 shell casings at the scene.

“Beyond that murder, the crimes against a mother and her two children, those things are completely unforgivable,” he said. “If that’s how you want to roll, this is going to be the toll.”

May maintained his innocence in a brief statement before Krichbaum sentenced him.