<p>LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A northern Indiana man who pleaded guilty to killing a man who was dating his ex-girlfriend has been sentenced to 60 years in prison in the gruesome 2019 slaying.</p>
<p>The Tippecanoe County judge who sentenced Talmadge Jasper, 20, on Tuesday, ordered the Lafayette man to serve 45 years of that sentence, the <a href="https://www.jconline.com/story/news/crime/2021/02/23/lafayette-murderer-sentenced-killing-his-exs-boyfriend/4556863001/">Journal & Courier</a> reported.</p>
<p>Jasper pleaded guilty in August to murder in the May 2019 killing of 29-year-old Ryan Martin. Prosecutors said Jasper, then 18, lured Martin to his Lafayette apartment and struck him from behind four times with a sledgehammer as Martin sat on a couch.</p>
<p>Prosecutors said Jasper then strangled the still-breathing Martin to death, wrapped his body in a plastic tote and hid it in a closet.</p>
<p>Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Michael Dean said Jasper killed Martin not because of mental illness, as Jasper’s defense attorney maintains, but out of vengeance because Martin was dating a woman Jasper had previously dated. </p>
<p>Dean said co-workers of the two men had teased Jasper about Martin’s relationship with his ex-girlfriend.</p>
<p>He said two court-appointed mental health experts agreed that Jasper’s psychotic symptoms were either fabricated or being exaggerated in an effort for leniency.</p>
<p>Judge Steve Meyer said he was not convinced that Jasper was mentally ill at the time of the murder, saying he would not give a “guilty but mentally ill” distinction with his sentence.</p>
<p>“He didn’t deserve any of it,” the judge told Jasper of Martin. “You callously and brutally snuffed out his life from this world.”</p>
