Father Held Without Bond in Son’s Death

A man who police say told them he took revenge against his wife by purposely fathering their child and then killing the boy was ordered held without bond on a murder charge Monday.

Ronald Lee Shanabarger, wearing a brown flak jacket over a jail jumpsuit, mumbled brief answers during a court hearing where he was assigned a public defender and told he will remain in jail until his Nov. 30 trial.

Shanabarger told police he planned the death to punish his wife, who had refused to cut short a cruise vacation after his father died in October 1996.

On June 22, just hours after the funeral of 7-month-old Tyler, Shanabarger confessed to his wife that he smothered their son in his crib three nights earlier, investigators said. A coroner had ruled that the infant died from sudden infant death syndrome.

The day after the funeral, Shanabarger, 30, allegedly told police that he suffocated Tyler with plastic wrap and that he dreamed up the crime after his father’s death.

When the judge asked whether Shanabarger thought he had enough money to hire his own attorney, he said, “I don’t know. I’d have to check with my wife.”

The judge suggested help was unlikely to come from his wife, Amy Shanabarger, and assigned public defender Richard Tandy to represent Shanabarger.

“I was with him for a minute and a half, and I really don’t know enough about him to say anything yet,” said Tandy, who planned to meet with his client to begin discussing a defense for the man who has allegedly confessed three times.

In Indiana, those accused of murder are not eligible for bail. And those convicted of murdering a child are eligible for capital punishment.

Prosecutor Lance Hamner said a death penalty decision may be weeks, even months, away.

The Rev. Randy Maynard, chaplain with the Franklin police, met with Shanabarger in jail after his arrest. He said Shanabarger was depressed, rattling off a list of things he had lost--his job, his house, his money, his wife, his friends.

“I said, ‘And you lost Tyler too,’ ” Maynard told reporters. “ ‘Oh yeah, I lost the boy too.’ That was it for me. He said the wrong thing. I was out of there.”