Gary Cecil Ferrell II, Promise Mays, and Pamela Sledd (WTHR screenshots)
A 28-year-old man in Indiana will likely spend the rest of his life in prison for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her grandmother in front of each other in the parking lot of an automotive seating factory two years ago.
Clinton Superior Court Judge Justin H. Hunter ordered Gary Cecil Ferrell II on Thursday to serve 110 years in a state correctional facility for the cold-blooded executions of 21-year-old Promise Mays and 62-year-old Pamela Sledd, authorities said.
According to a press release from the 45th Judicial Circuit Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Ferrell pleaded guilty to two counts of murder in the attack captured on the factory’s security camera. It happened on Aug. 18, 2023, two years to the day from the date of the shooting.
Hunter sentenced Ferrell to serve 45 to 65 years for each count of murder, with the sentences to run consecutively, meaning one after the other. With Indiana’s law requiring such sentences to be served to at least 75% completion, Ferrell will serve at least 80 years before he is eligible for release.
In a sentencing order obtained by Indianapolis CW affiliate WISH-TV, Hunter noted how appalling it was for the two family members as they “watched the other being shot.” He called the crime “brutal and heinous.”
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“With respect to the murder he inflicted upon Pamela Sled, defendant shot Ms. Sledd after she had turned her back and was retreating from the scene of the offense she had witnessed against her granddaughter,” he reportedly wrote in the document. “[Ferrell] acted out an entitlement to control and possess Promise Mays, whether in life or in death, even though she had demonstrated only kindness for the many people whom she encountered in her short and precious life.”
In a press release, the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office said that deputies responded at about 4:14 p.m. to multiple 911 calls of two people being shot in the parking lot of the newly opened NHK Seating Plant in the 8400 block of West State Road 28 in Frankfort, Indiana. Once there, first responders found both victims. They died at the scene.
Investigators quickly identified Ferrell as the suspected shooter and found his vehicle traveling east on the same road. Following a brief pursuit that reached up to 100 mph, authorities caught Farrell after his vehicle crashed into a construction area at State Road 28 and Nickle Plate Road.
A copy of the probable cause affidavit obtained by the Journal & Courier provided additional details regarding the ambush attack on Mays and Sledd, who worked at the NHK factory and were arriving for their shifts.
Just after Sledd parked her car in the lot, Ferrell reportedly pulled behind her car and tried to force Mays into his trunk while holding a semiautomatic handgun. Sledd got out of the car to help her granddaughter and confronted Ferrell, who reportedly shot her three times. Mays was crouching behind Ferrell’s car and refused to get in the trunk when he shot and killed her, the Courier reported. He then backed over her body before fleeing the scene.
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