The Ohio serial killer had already been sentenced to death, but that didn’t stop the father of one of his victims from diving over a table to try to hurt the man who killed his daughter.
“How are you doing, your honor? My name is Van Terry, father of Shirellda Terry,” he said from a podium in a Cleveland courtroom. “Right now I guess we’re supposed to, in our hearts, forgive this clown,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
The “clown” he referred to is 38-year-old Michael Madison, who killed Terry’s 18-year-old daughter in 2013. Madison also killed 38-year-old Angela Deskins and 28-year-old Shetisha Sheeley and left their bodies in trash bags near his East Cleveland apartment.
Their bodies were discovered after a cable worker smelled a foul odor coming from the bags in July 2013. Police discovered the three women’s bodies, and medical examiners determined that Deskins and Shirellda Terry had been strangled to death, while Sheeley’s cause of death could not be determined.
At Madison’s sentencing, Van Terry continued, “He touched our families, taking my town … ” He then stopped speaking and turned to face Madison for a few seconds before diving toward the serial killer, who, family told Fox 8, was smiling during the proceedings.
Courtroom officers grabbed the father as members of Terry’s family could be heard yelling, “No,” the Plain Dealer reports. Terry and another man who was caught up in the incident were escorted out of the courtroom. A smiling Madison was also escorted out of the courtroom before the judge called for a recess.
See the incident below.
Read more at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Fox 8.