RENO, Nev. (AP) - A 40-year-old woman who was convicted of fatally shooting the father of her young child while the boy stood nearby at a popular Reno park along the Truckee River has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Katherine Fletcher was found guilty in February of first-degree murder in the killing of Robert Trask at Oxbow Nature Park on July 28, 2016.
Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks announced Monday that Judge Egan Walker sentenced Fletcher on Oct. 29.
Trask was found unresponsive on the park’s wildlife observation deck with a single gunshot wound to his upper back and later died at a local hospital, Reno police detectives said.
Detectives said Fletcher and Trask had been involved in a protracted custody dispute that limited Fletcher’s visitation to their 8-year-old boy. The two met at the park on the night she shot him as the child stood near his father, prosecutors said.
“The cruelty of this crime is compounded by the lifelong Traumatic effects on the child,” Deputy District Attorney Amos Stege said.
The boy told police his mother claimed that a man had shot at her from behind the bushes, prosecutors said. Fletcher previously was convicted of child neglect and burglary in possession of a firearm.
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