An Ohio woman who pleaded guilty to fatally drugging four men she met for sex before stealing their possessions was sentenced this week to at least six decades in prison, officials said.
The woman, Rebecca Auborn, 35, faces four consecutive life sentences in prison, according to the sentence delivered on Thursday by Judge Karen Phipps of Franklin County.
Ms. Auborn, who pleaded guilty in December to four counts of murder and one count of felonious assault, will be eligible for parole after 60 years, the office of the Franklin County prosecuting attorney, Shayla D. Favor, said in a news release.
The case against Ms. Auborn dates to 2023 when she was indicted after an investigation spurred by tips to the Central Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force about a human trafficking ring, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Investigators found that, from December 2022 to June 2023, Ms. Auborn “had been meeting men for sex in exchange for money in various locations in Columbus, then overdosing the victims with fentanyl in order to steal their possessions,” the prosecutor’s office said. The deaths occurred in that period.
The four Ohio men who died as a result of Ms. Auborn’s actions were identified by prosecutors as: Joseph Crumpler, 30, of North Linden; Robert Snoke, 54, of Pataskala; Wayne Akin, 64, of the Northeast Side; and Guy Renda, 42, of Belpre. A fifth man, Richard Bixler, 61, of Columbus, survived.
According to investigators, Ms. Auborn met the men in the northeastern part of Columbus, sometimes near highways.
Mark M. Hunt, the lawyer for Ms. Auborn, said in court that his client took full responsibility for her actions, noting that she did not mean to kill the men and pointed to years of abuse, including sexual exploitation and trafficking, that she had suffered.
“When you confess to something, you are necessarily showing remorse,” he said on Thursday.
Mr. Hunt asked the court for concurrent sentences, which would have reduced the time served, arguing that “regardless of what the court does today, and everybody I hope understands this, she’s getting a life sentence.”
Standing next to her lawyer, a tearful Ms. Auborn said that she prays daily for the men who died and that she was a changed person.
“If you look at my mug shot you can see the emptiness in my eyes,” she said. “I tried to fill that emptiness with drugs, not sleeping or eating for days and days on end, which then induced me to having out-of-body experiences.”
“I want you all to know how truly sorry I am,” she added.
Mr. Hunt said on Saturday that “the prison in which Ms. Auborn will be spending the rest of her life in is far better than the prison she found herself living in on the streets of Columbus.”
A daughter of one of the victims, Mr. Akin, provided NBC News with a victim statement.
“No matter how much torment this has caused, I want you to know that I couldn’t bring myself to hate you and I never will,” NBC reported.
Attorney General Dave Yost of Ohio said in a statement on Thursday that Ms. Auborn’s sentence reflected her “disregard for life and the callousness not only to kill, but to do it repeatedly.”
Aimee Ortiz covers breaking news and other topics.
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