Earlier this year the tragic story of Baby Maddox Lawrence captivated the Central New York Community. Today her father, Ryan Lawrence was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole for her murder. Lawrence expressed regrets in court and took responsibility.
“Although I blame no one else for my act, as the pressures to give her the perfect life built up, I also struggled against negative waves of emotions bearing witness to the pain and sadness of many of my wife’s and daughter’s interactions. Yet no reason and no psychological diagnosis seemed plausible to me to make me commit this act against my nature, to take the one thing I love most. Not a second goes by that I don’t wish I could take back what I did and that Maddox would still be alive. I pray she is in a better place.”
He said there was no reason she had to die…and wondered how he got into such a dark place. Onondaga County Judge Anthony Aloi expressed some comfort in knowing that Lawrence waived appeals and plead guilty.
“Baby Maddox, she deserves a quiet and true and final resting peace without any possibility of appellate decisions that may disturb that peace several years from now.”
Aloi added that the overriding questions was, ‘what was the purpose?’ and he could only answer that there was none.
He went along with the plea agreement that had Lawrence plead guilty and waive rights to appeal, in exchange for not getting a life-without the possibility of parole sentence. But Aloi pulled no punches in what he thought was just.
“Mr. Lawrence, based on the totality of the case, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in prison for what you did. I might not be around in 25 years (when parole will come up) …but my words are in this record and my opinions will live on.”
Investigators say the 20-month-old baby was struck with a baseball bat and her body was set on fire. The charred remains of Baby Maddox were found in Syracuse’s Inner Harbor by Syracuse Police. County Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Cali says her mother and family did an incredible job of remembering Maddox in court today.
“Morgan’s ability to speak, her parents ability to speak, and even Ryan’s brother, as articulately as they did set it off. They said it; she was a bright, energetic, wonderful girl.”
Ryan Lawrence’s Defense Attorney Michael Vavonese says the case was one of the most difficult in his 32 years of representing criminal defendants.
