Editor’s note: The details in this story may be disturbing to some readers.
New Richmond school leaders are responding after a Clermont County man allegedly brutally shot and killed his three sons, ages 3, 4 and 7, on June 15, according to the Clermont County Sheriff’s office.
The shooting happened Thursday around 4 p.m. at a home on the 1900 block of Laurel Lindale Road in Monroe Township, about 30 minutes east of downtown Cincinnati. The sheriff’s office said two calls were placed to 911, one by a woman who called screaming that “her babies had been shot,” and another by a passerby saying that a juvenile girl was running down the road saying that “her father was killing everyone.”
Sheriff’s deputies said they arrived on scene to find 32-year-old Chad Doerman sitting outside the home. The three boys who had been shot were in the yard. First responders practiced “life-saving measures” but were unsuccessful. All three children died at the scene. The boys’ mother, 34, was also outside the home with a gunshot wound to the hand. She was transported to UC Medical Center for treatment where Sheriff Robert Leahy said he informed her that her three sons had died from their gunshot wounds.
Doerman was booked in Clermont County Jail where he is being held without bond, according to a press release from the Clermont County Sheriff’s Office. He has been charged with the three counts of aggravated murder. In court, prosecutors reportedly said Doerman confessed to planning the murders, lining up his three children and executing them with a rifle. Prosecutors said one of the boys tried to run away into an open field before Doerman chased him down, dragged him back to the house and killed him.
Handling the tragedy
Tracey Miller, the superintendent for New Richmond Schools, addressed the community during a June 16 press conference. He said the 7-year-old child who was killed had attended the district’s elementary school “for a time,” but said the juvenile girl who escaped and is referenced in the second 911 call is currently a student in the district going to high school.
“[She’s] been deeply impacted for the rest of her life,” Miller said. “We’re going to embrace her.”
The district has assembled a crisis response team to provide grief counselors to students, parents, faculty and staff, which Miller said will continue into the school year. He said the district is still dealing with the emotional aftermath of the murder death of another district student in February.
“We still haven’t recovered yet from what happened in the late winter,” Miller said. “I’ve never had a child be murdered, and this is the second one within the past four months. It’s brutal.”
The motivation behind Doerman’s crimes is not clear at this time, but Miller reminded community members during Friday’s press conference that there are resources for people who sense red flags in others.
“We’ve also got an anonymous line, Stay Safe Speak Up, it’s on our website,” Miller said. “You can submit a concern anonymously, say, ‘Hey, I’m concerned about Joe Smith, they’re not in a good place, can someone check on them?’ Right away, as soon as that message gets sent, it goes to one of our team members here. It goes to our school resource officer, and we jump on it right away. If you’re in a time of trouble, a time of despair, you are not a voice crying into the wilderness. There are people here.”
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This article appears in Jun 14-27, 2023.
