(ELYRIA, Ohio) — A 30-year-old Elyria man who tracked down and killed a man who once shared the same foster family has been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced today.
Antonio Sprinkle pleaded guilty to the 2019 murder of Antwan Dormendo, 27, and was sentenced on Monday in Lorain County Common Pleas Court.
“Elyria is a safer place with this senseless murderer behind bars,” Yost said. “Thanks to our partners at the Elyria Police Department, we were able to get a conviction and ensure justice.”
Sprinkle told Elyria police investigators that he stabbed Dormendo because he believed that Dormendo had burglarized his apartment a month earlier and urinated on his mattress. He began carrying a steak knife, intending to rob or stab Dormendo.
The two saw each other on the evening of Aug. 15, 2019, during a get-together with friends. Early on the morning of Aug. 16, Sprinkle caught up with Dormendo at a gas station on Lake Avenue. He approached Dormendo on foot and got into his car. Dormendo began to drive off but didn’t make it out of the parking lot before his car hit a curb.
Covered in blood, Dormendo got out of his car and ran into the gas station asking for help and identifying his attacker as “my brother” and “Tone.” The station clerk called 911, and Dormendo was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where he died from three stab wounds in the chest.
Sprinkle, meanwhile, got in the driver’s seat of Dormendo’s car and fled, ending up 20 miles northeast in Rocky River, where he crashed the vehicle, leaving behind the front license plate. He then drove the car to a gas station in Cleveland, where he abandoned it around 1 a.m. From there, Sprinkle took an Uber back to Elyria, where he was arrested at 7 a.m.
The knife used in the stabbing had broken apart, and the blade was found in Dormendo’s abandoned car. Elyria police submitted the blade to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Laboratory Division, which confirmed the presence of DNA from Dormendo. DNA testing by BCI also revealed that Sprinkle had Dormendo’s blood on his hands when he was arrested.
Investigators determined that Sprinkle and Dormendo had lived together as juveniles in the same foster home.
The case was prosecuted by the Special Prosecutions Section of the Attorney General’s Office.
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