Colorado Woman Beats Accused Child Molester – Who Was Innocent – To Death With A Baseball Bat, Gets 38 Years

A Denver woman who beat a man to death with a baseball bat, believing he had molested her 4-year-old daughter despite zero evidence, was sentenced Friday to 38 years in prison, The New Orleans Times-Picayune is reporting.

Forsythia Owen, 32, who has a history of mental illness and a long criminal rap sheet, was convicted of second-degree murder, first-degree assault, and tampering with evidence for the 2013 beating death of 42-year-old Denzel Rainey.

The Denver Post reports that in September 2013, Owen’s then 4-year-old daughter told Owen that Rainey – whom the family knew – had molested her. Friends encouraged the Colorado woman to take her concerns to police. Instead, according to Jason Siers, the prosecutor in the case, she “engaged in misplaced, vigilante justice,” and took matters into her own hands.

On the night of the murder, Owen, who had been drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana with friends, took a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and found Rainey sleeping in an alley and viciously assaulted him with the bat. Prosecutors say the innocent man suffered six broken ribs, multiple cuts, a laceration to his liver, a shattered left testicle, and a skull fracture. He was taken to a hospital where he died a short time later.

Owen was arrested the following day.

Prosecutors had asked for the maximum possible sentence of 48 years, while her defense attorney, citing his client’s mental illness, asked for 16 years.

Defense Attorney Joseph Archambault tried to argue that the Colorado woman’s mental illness – she had a history of bipolar disorder – played a role in the murder, and that she deserved leniency. The judge, however, noted in his decision that Owen had resisted taking her prescribed medications, choosing instead to “self medicate” with drugs and alcohol.

In fact, in 2002, Owen – during a bi-polar episode – stabbed her boyfriend and subsequently did time in prison. While incarcerated, she got counseling and took medication. However, once free, she “answered the siren song of drugs and alcohol,” as the prosecutor put it.

District Court Judge Marilyn Leonard Antrim, in her decision, reminded the court that the man Owen beat to death with a baseball bat was not guilty of any crimes.

“Rainey was not guilty of any of those acts. His memory should not be tarnished.”

Do you think 38 years is a fair sentence for beating a homeless man to death with a baseball bat? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

[Image courtesy of: The Denver Post]