Kevin GrashaCincinnati Enquirer
The wife of Roop Gupta, who was killed three years ago during an attempted robbery at his Madeira convenience store, didn't attend Monday's sentencing for the man who shot her husband.
She remains devastated by what happened and didn't want to hear the facts of the Feb. 9, 2021 incident recounted in court, a federal prosecutor said.
But she wrote a letter, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Garcia read aloud, as Willie James Attaway stood behind a podium next to his attorney, and listened.
Attaway, 33, was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati to 40 years in prison. Judge Susan Dlott imposed the sentence.
Gupta's wife described the three years since Attaway fatally shot her husband as extremely empty and lonely. Their children, she said, are the only reason she gets out of bed.
"The uncertainty of life and death haunts me every day," she wrote.
When people ask her how she is doing, she said, "How can I tell them there's no healing from this tragedy?"
Robbery spree
The fatal shooting happened during a two-day robbery spree. Attaway and 38-year old Lamond Johnson worked together, prosecutors said, with Attaway going into the stores with a gun and Johnson serving as the getaway driver. They targeted four gas stations and Gupta's store, Madeira Beverage.
The first two robberies took place on Feb. 8, 2021 − both were gas stations. In the second, at a Shell station in Hamilton, Attaway walked behind the counter and told a clerk to put money from the cash register into a bag.
Attaway pointed a handgun at the clerk and said he would shoot if the clerk didn't comply, according to prosecutors. In court Monday, Attaway denied threatening to shoot any of the victims.
It was snowing that day, and after Johnson and Attaway fled, they crashed their rented SUV on a highway. It was found abandoned.
The next morning, on Feb. 9, 2021, Johnson rented another SUV, and that evening he and Attaway went to the Kenwood Towne Centre and bought clothes.
Attaway was wearing his new, all-black outfit when he walked into Madeira Beverage.
According to prosecutors, Attaway briefly wandered the aisles before he walked behind the counter and confronted Gupta. There was a brief struggle. Prosecutors said Gupta had his hands raised when Attaway fired once. Gupta, who was struck in the abdomen, died about an hour later at a local hospital.
About 20 minutes later, Attaway and Johnson robbed a gas station in Blue Ash. Soon after, they tried to rob another gas station in Lebanon, but the owner was able to chase away Attaway, prosecutors said, by pretending he had a gun behind the counter.
Attaway, Johnson charged
Johnson and Attaway were arrested a month later by police and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Johnson was arrested first, after law enforcement tried to stop him and Attaway in a vehicle. According to court documents, Johnson reversed and rammed into an ATF car. Johnson and Attaway then fled. As Johnson ran, the documents say, he pointed what turned out to be a BB gun at law enforcement officers pursuing him.
Johnson was arrested soon after. Attaway turned himself in a few days later. Both men ultimately pleaded guilty to multiple charges. Johnson was sentenced Monday to 23 years in prison
During Attaway's sentencing Monday, his attorney, Tim McKenna, described Attaway's extremely difficult childhood − being abandoned by his father when he was 5, having a mother who was addicted to drugs, and struggling with mental health issues. He was in foster care by age 7 and was arrested for the first time when he was 10 years old. Attaway has spent most of his life in behavioral homes, jail or prison, McKenna said.
Attaway also read from a statement, at times becoming emotional. He said he thinks about the shooting every day and that he never meant to hurt anyone.
He also said he has tried to kill himself.
"I wish I would have," he said. The robberies and the killing of Gupta "never would have happened."
'We need to be protected from you'
In sentencing Attaway to 40 years − the maximum under the plea agreement − Dlott noted that he committed or tried to commit two other robberies after killing Gupta.
Dlott said she wanted to keep society safe from him as long as possible.
"We need to be protected from you, Mr. Attaway," she said.
