Judge gives 86 years in Rockford woman’s death

ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) - A Winnebago County judge has sentenced a mentally ill man to 86 years in prison in his mother’s shooting death.

The Rockford Register Star reports (https://bit.ly/1jnelTA) that 30-year-old Franklin T. Byrd was sentenced Monday in the 2009 death of Leslie Byrd. Jurors in October found Byrd guilty but mentally ill on multiple counts of first-degree murder.

Authorities say the woman was found at her home with dozen gunshot wounds and her abdomen cut with a knife after she was already dead.

Byrd’s public defender said she will file an appeal of the sentencing.

Franklin Byrd’s sister, 31-year-old Toccara Byrd, said after the sentencing that she forgives her brother. She says “86 years is a long time” and she’s “trying to hold the family together.”

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Information from: Rockford Register Star, https://www.rrstar.com