A Jackson Township man who admitted to murdering his wife in 2011 has been sentenced to 45 years in prison, the Associated Press was reporting today.

On Thursday, Fredrick C. Cashner Jr., 56, with a listed address on East Tratebas Road, was sentenced under a plea agreement to 45 years, the minimum term for murder. The maximum term: 65 years.

Cashner could be eligible for release after serving half his sentence.

Nearly three years ago, on Easter Sunday, Cashner shot his wife, Cynthia Cashner, 51, multiple times with an assault rifle at her business in Portage. On Thursday, Cynthia Cashner’s son, Matthew Hooper, told Porter Superior Court Judge Roger Bradford that “he can’t imagine what his mother went through in her final moments,” the AP reported. Hooper added that his mother’s “Easter Sunday murder has forever ruined the holiday for his family.”

At 10:25 p.m. Sunday, April 24, 2011, a 911 dispatcher took a call from the Mystic Moon Herbal Shoppe in Portage. What the dispatcher heard was this: labored breathing, a man’s voice saying “It’s too late,” and gunshots.

Officers dispatched to the scene found Cynthia Cashner, in her upstairs quarters on an air mattress, dead of multiple gunshot wounds to both legs, left hip, abdomen, both shoulders, and neck. She appears to have been sitting on the air mattress at the time, working on her laptop computer.

Eight 7.62x39 shell casings—consistent with those fired by an assault rifle commonly called the AK-47, according to the probable cause affidavit—were recovered from the scene. Evidence indicated that several of the bullets had ricocheted off the cement floor.

About 30 minutes after the initial 911 call, Cynthia Cashner’s son reported that his step-father, Fredrick Cashner, had contacted him at 10:33 p.m.—eight minutes after that initial 911 call—and told him that he’d just killed his step-son’s mother, the affidavit states.

Officers responded to Cashner’s residence on Tratebas Road, where they observed someone moving inside the home. The occupant would not answer the door, however, or respond to requests for communication. A search warrant was obtained, the Porter County Sheriff’s Police SWAT Team responded to the scene, and eventually Cashner did exit the residence.

His words to officers, the affidavit states: “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting for you and there’s no problems here.”

Recovered from a pickup truck parked at the residence were an AK-47 with a round chambered and a magazine seated; and a second loaded magazine lying next to the rifle.

Posted 1/4/2013