A woman who killed her “off and on” boyfriend by shooting him in the back of the head as he sat in a chair in his living room has been sentenced to life in prison.
On Oct. 24, 53-year-old Janel Marie Nelson of Thorp, Wisconsin, entered a no-contest plea to murder and was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 18 years for the killing of 55-year-old Michael James Corrigan of Beavercreek, Ohio, according to a statement from the Greene County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
“By entering pleas of no contest, Nelson did not make an admission of guilt,” the statement explained. “Rather, she made an admission of the truth of the facts alleged in the indictment. Based upon this, the Court found her guilty.”
The case began on the night of Aug. 22, 2024, when Corrigan’s family asked police to check on him after he stopped answering calls and text messages, the prosecutor’s office said.
When officers arrived at his home, they discovered Corrigan dead in his living room with a single gunshot wound to the back of his head. Investigators later determined he had been shot the previous day, on Aug. 21, with a .380 caliber bullet from a distance of about 10 feet, according to an affidavit obtained by the Dayton Daily News.
During the investigation, a Beavercreek Police Department detective identified Nelson as a suspect.
Authorities traced her to Omaha, Nebraska, after a 30-year-old woman posted a selfie with Nelson on Facebook with the caption, “Seeing my mother for the first time in 16 years,” the affidavit states, as reported by the Dayton Daily News.
The woman told the detective that her mother had appeared at her home unexpectedly after many years without contact, according to the affidavit.
Detectives eventually located Nelson at a church in Omaha and brought her in for questioning.
During the interview, Nelson “admitted to several key facts, including that she was with Corrigan just before his murder,” according to the prosecutor’s statement.
She characterized her relationship with Corrigan as “off and on,” the affidavit noted, per the Dayton Daily News.
Nelson was arrested in Omaha on a warrant charging her with voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault and aggravated assault.
Investigators later executed a search warrant and recovered a firearm from Nelson’s vehicle, which was identified as the murder weapon. She was subsequently extradited to Ohio.
Corrigan is remembered on the National Gun Violence Memorial site as “happy-go-lucky.”
“Mike was taken long before his time,” one commenter wrote. “I will miss him every hour of every day.”
