Collins said police are investigating the case as a homicide. The report filed today by police lists aggravated robbery and aggravated murder as the crimes committed.
In a 911 recording obtained by this news outlet, a woman frantically tells a dispatcher that someone has shot her 20-year-old son.
“The other man just ran out,” the woman said, sobbing. The woman can then be heard telling her daughter to go in the bedroom and lock the door.
“I’m scared he is going to come back,” she said in the recording.
The woman told the dispatcher she heard yelling and a gunshot. The man, who she described as young with a slim build, held a gun to her head and told her to shut up before running out the door.
The dispatcher talked the woman through trying to stop the bleeding as they waited for officers and paramedics to arrive. The woman said her son had suffered three gunshot wounds — in the head, cheek and arm.
A news release sent by Hamilton police lists Sandle’s date of birth as Jan. 10, which means he would have turned 20 just three days before the fatal shooting.
Sandle pleaded guilty to attempted assault on a police officer in July, and was placed on three years probation and sentenced to 30 days in the Butler County Jail.
His friends remembered him as someone who was down to earth and tried to stay positive, who liked the beach and sports and loved music, according to our news partner WCPO 9 On Your Side.
A next-door neighbor, Quinton Whitson, told WCPO that Sandle was like a big brother who kept him out of trouble.
“I started crying,” Whitson said. “I was walking home and I called my mom, and my mom said, ‘I have something sad to tell you,’ and I was like ‘What?’ And I just started bawling walking home with my head down.”
Rachel McCoy, who spent the evening with Sandle’s family, told WCPO that the victim was shot in front of his mother, Rebecca. The family moved to Ohio from Australia, McCoy said.
“I know she watched her son die this morning, and that is not fair to her,” McCoy said.
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