Stories Related to Sentencing Underway For Shawn Ford In Slaying Of New Franklin Couple

Proceedings have begun in the sentencing of Shawn Eric Ford Jr., who was convicted in the 2013 double homicide of a prominent New Franklin couple in their home.Chelsea Schobert, the daughter of victims Jeffrey and Margaret Schobert and Ford’s former girlfriend, arrived in court about 10:30 a.m. Monday.Ford could be sentence to death.Last week, Summit County Common Pleas Judge Tom Parker ruled that Ford failed to prove that his claims of mental disability should spare him from facing capital punishment.Ford, 20, was convicted of multiple counts of aggravated murder in October, along with an array of death penalty specifications, in the April 2013 bludgeoning deaths of Jeffrey Schobert, a prominent area attorney, and his wife, who commonly was known as Peg, at their Portage Lakes home.Parker has two options: He can accept the jury’s previous recommendation that Ford should be put to death for his crimes, or he can order him to spend the rest of his life in a state penitentiary.Ford’s lawyers had argued that his low IQ barred him from receiving a death sentence.