A New Market-area woman convicted of shooting and killing her husband after a heated argument was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison.
Sheila L. Ridenour, 57, appeared in Montgomery Circuit Court to learn her punishment in the November 2018 case. She pleaded guilty in March to felony voluntary manslaughter in exchange for prosecutors dropping a murder charge.
Ridenour shot her 61-year-old husband, Billy, three times inside their home after she says he assaulted her during the alcohol-fueled argument, and then waited two days to call police.
Though it was the first time Billy had hit her, Ridenour’s attorneys pointed to a long history of domestic violence against her in two previous marriages. Prosecutors said Ridenour should have called for help or left the house after being assaulted.
“She had good choices and a very bad choice [in handling the assault],” Judge Harry Siamas said in giving the sentence, as members of both families sat in the courtroom.
From the stand, Ridenour apologized to Billy’s family, who wore blue ribbons and wept as testimony was given during the hearing.
“I sincerely regret this ever happening. You can sit there and shake your head, but I do,” she said.
The couple had been talking over drinks in the garage on the night of Nov. 10, 2018 when a fight began over a comment Ridenour made about one of her husband’s co-workers.
Billy repeatedly struck her in the face, ribs and legs and left her unconscious on the floor. A doctor later determined Ridenour’s injuries were not serious.
Sometime later, Ridenour went inside the house, where Billy was asleep or passed out on a couch, and retrieved a small-caliber revolver. Her attorneys said Ridenour had the handgun for personal protection due to the violence in her previous marriages.
“No one knows what they would do after they were attacked in the manner” Billy attacked Ridenour, her attorney Tarek Mercho said.
The first shot struck Billy in the left ear. As he tried to escape from the house, a second shot hit him in the back, paralyzing him.
The fatal shot was to the chin. Indiana State Police Crime Scene Investigator Sgt. Jim Cody testified that residue on Billy’s body indicated the shots were fired at close range.
Prosecutors said Ridenour moved Billy’s remains in order to close the front door. Investigators found the gun hidden between lawn chair cushions inside a utility room in the garage.
“I don’t think you can impute acts of husband number one and two to Billy Ridenour,” prosecutor Joe Buser said during the hearing.
Billy was remembered as a beloved Kroger employee who once bought a winter coat for a co-worker. His oldest son, Cody Ridenour, and daughter, Kayla Wallace, read letters detailing the struggle of coping with their father’s death.
In other testimony, Billy’s younger brother Randy Ridenour called Sheila “manipulative, evil and nasty” and said she’d shown no remorse for the killing.
He added that the family has never believed her version of the events leading up to the shooting.
“I pray to God you go to hell when you die,” he said, as Ridenour sat between her two attorneys.
Ridenour’s relatives, including two of her three children and her 85-year-old mother, testified that she was a good parent who returned to school for her GED while raising a family.
“After being abused by basically every man she loved, I think she thought it was kind of normal,” said her 37-year-old son, Joshua Mann.
Ridenour was sentenced to 20 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections on the manslaughter charge and received an additional 10 years for using a firearm.
She was also ordered to pay court costs and funeral expenses.
