LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — The Michigan Court docket of Appeals has upheld a Charlotte lady’s 2021 convictions for homicide, conspiracy, and mutilation of a useless physique for the 2002 killing of her stepfather. Dineane Rochelle Ducharme’s sentence to life in jail with out parole will stand.
The case stems from a homicide that went unsolved for almost 20 years—beginning when a Grand Haven man discovered a physique on his property on Might 8, 2002. Detective Robert Donker of the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Workplace, who visited the scene, discovered a burned physique in a steel trunk.
An undated picture of Robert Caraballo.
The sufferer was later recognized in 2015 as 37-year-old Robert Caraballo of Charlotte. Authorities say Ducharme, her mom Beverly McCallum—Caraballo’s spouse—and Ducharme’s pal Christopher McMillan of Grand Rapids killed Caraballo in Charlotte, put his physique in a steel footlocker, took it to an Ottawa County blueberry farm and burned it.
Dineane Ducharme. (Courtesy of the Eaton County Sheriff’s Workplace)
Beverly McCallum (Courtesy of the Eaton County Sheriff’s Workplace)
Christopher McMillan. (Courtesy of the Eaton County Sheriff’s Workplace)
In 2019, McMillan pleaded responsible to second-degree homicide and conspiracy and was sentenced to at the least 15 years in jail, testifying in court docket that the homicide was McCallum’s concept as a result of her and Caraballo’s sad marriage. He advised the court docket McCallum shoved her husband down the steps, Ducharme and McCallum beat him with a hammer, after which they suffocated him.
McCallum was arrested in Italy in 2020 and was extradited in 2020. She was convicted of second-degree homicide and mutilation of a useless physique in 2024.
Ducharme was convicted of homicide, conspiracy, and mutilation of a useless physique in 2021, and in 2022, she was sentenced to life in jail with out the potential for parole.
She tried to enchantment, alleging that her rights to due course of and a good trial have been violated, however the Michigan Court docket of Appeals discovered that she failed to indicate that “any errors occurred or that there was any prejudice even assuming any of her complaints amounted to error.”
Ducharme additionally tried to assert that her sentence of life with out the potential for parole was unconstitutional as a result of she was 21 years previous on the time of the homicide, constituting merciless and weird punishment, claiming that the prohibition for life-without-parole sentences for youth ought to apply to 21-year-olds.
This was additionally denied, and Ducharme’s convictions and sentence nonetheless stand.
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