Perrine family thankful for guilty verdicts, life sentence for man who killed his mother
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NEWARK − The family of murder victim Debra Perrine finally got the outcome they wanted, 16 months after the tragic result they had always feared.
David Perrine, 41, of Newark, received a sentence of life without parole for the brutal December 2022 murder of his mother, Debra Perrine, 67, who was buried in a shallow grave in her back yard at 207 Darlene Drive, Newark.
Debra Perrine suffered blunt force trauma to her head and 14 stab wounds to her face, neck and upper chest. She was found Dec. 29, 2022, 12 days after she was last seen. The charges were aggravated murder, murder, tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse and two counts of theft.
After the jury reached guilty verdicts on all six counts, family members of Debra Perrine asked Licking County Common Pleas Judge David Branstool to give David Perrine the maximum sentence. They said fear of David Perrine isolated Debra Perrine from the rest of the family because the two lived together.
"I have so many emotions right now running through me. I’m angry. I’m sad. And I’m really, really numb," Debra Perrine's sister Ann Dennis said. "My sister was afraid of her son, of my nephew. She was afraid for all of us. We were afraid of him.
“How did we get here? How do you even kill your mother? He took my sister’s life long before he murdered her. She never got to meet nieces and nephews. She never got to meet my grandkids. She will never have that opportunity. I will never hear my sister’s laughter again. I will never receive my annual happy New Year’s call. I’ll never get to say happy birthday to her. You have taken that away and we will never get it back."
Family members described David Perrine as an angry man who shot his mother's cat with a BB gun at age 16, almost beat an elderly man to death with a brick, spent his adult life in and out of prison and ultimately killed the only person who never gave up on him.
"Each time he went to prison, she tried to help him change," Debra Perrine's sister Tami Ruhl said. "He was her son, and she felt she had to be there. I know she loved him, and it cost her her life. I want him put away, so he can never do this to anybody again."
Courtney Wade, the wife of Debra Perrine's son Randy, said she only saw her mother-in-law about 20 times in 25 years, mostly at funerals.
"I didn't know her very well," Wade said. "My husband wanted to protect me from that family. When we had twins, Randy didn't have his mother there. She wasn't there for a single soccer game, birthday, wrestling match, a cheerleading event. She wasn't there for a track meet. I never spent one single Mother's Day with her."
After listening to the emotional comments from family members, Branstool issued his ruling.
"I agree this is a life without parole sentence, based on what he did, (his) lack of remorse, (being) uncooperative with the police and based on prior record," Branstool said.
The jury took 85 minutes to reach a verdict on all six counts.
"For the most part, we were all in agreement of the big picture," juror Amy Coffey said. "There was some speculation on whether aggravated (murder) or not, but ultimately when piecing through everything we'd seen for the last several days, we decided that it was aggravated."
The final day of the murder trial started with the revelation of a notebook found in between cushions on a couch where David Perrine slept. The notebook included the words, "I will kill her. I really don't think she thinks I will. I can't believe how stupid I've been."
Evidence included a kitchen knife, which might have been used to murder Debra Perrine, found between the mattress and box spring on her bed. It contained what appeared to be her blood on the blade and what appeared to be her son’s DNA on the handle, a DNA analyst testified.
Debra Perrine’s DNA, presumably from blood, was also present on the mattress, foam mattress pad, a pillow case and a two size 11 work boots worn by David Perrine. David Perrine's DNA was also found on a boot and the foam mattress pad, which was cut out out of the bed and placed in a trash can in the garage.
Prosecutor Jenny Wells used words like "savagely," "viciously" and "discards her like refuse" in her closing arguments to describe the defendant's actions in killing and burying his mother, whose photo remained on a video screen in front of the jury while Wells spoke.
"Debra Perrine and her son, the defendant, argued about money, and they argued about David getting his life together," Wells said. "On the 17th, we established he needed money and he wanted money. She lived on a fixed income. She didn't have money to give him. And, he won't take no for an answer.
"His mother was thinking about moving and selling the house. She was looking up affordable apartments online. Everything pointed to the fact that she was ready to get out of there. The defendant believed that house was paid off and he believed that house was going to go to him."
Wells said David Perrine attacked his mother late on Dec. 17 or early on Dec. 18, using a PlayStation 5 game to bash his mother's in the head, then picking up a knife to stab her 14 times.
David Perrine testified in his own defense, against the advice of his attorney, Kristin Burkett. He said he gave his mother the knife for protection, which she hid under her mattress. He said his boots, which had his mother's blood on them, had been worn by one of his friends. He said he didn't remember much of what happened in December 2022 because he was using drugs. Other times, he contradicted his own previous comments to police.
"The truth does not change," Wells said. "Lies change. It becomes harder and harder to remember what you said and to make everything match up."
Burkett said, "I think he shouldn't have testified, but I don't think his testimony changed the outcome. (The verdict), it was not unexpected, but we were disappointed."
In her closing argument, Burkett said David Perrine had no history of physical violence against his mother, and their arguments comprised only part of their relationship.
"Is there one shred of evidence that he ever laid a hand on her?" Burkett asked. "Is there a photograph of an injury? Is there a discussion of an injury? Anything at all, to indicate that this verbally toxic relationship between these two people ever became physical? I submit to you there is not."
Following the trial, Wells said she could not reveal all of David Perrine's criminal history, according to the rules of evidence.
"There, in fact, had been (violence), but it had never been recorded," Wells said. "From family members, lots of stories about things that happened in the past."
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This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: David Perrine murder trial ends with guilty verdicts, life sentence
