Inset left: Joshua Penick (Greene County (Ind.) Sheriff’s Office/WTHI). Inset right: Samantha Lynn Jerrell, right, and her son Colton Alan, who were killed by Joshua Penick in October 2024 (Walton Funeral Services). Background: A road near Bear Run Mine in Greene County, Indiana.
An Indiana man who admitted to strangling his ex-wife and their teenage son before burying them in shallow graves near a coal mine has been sentenced to more than a century behind bars.
Joshua Penick, 36, was ordered to serve two 60-year sentences for the murders of his ex-wife Samantha Jerrell, 36, and their son Colton, 14. Penick murdered them in October 2024 and tried to conceal their bodies near the Bear Run Mine in Sullivan County, some 100 miles southwest of Indianapolis near the Illinois border.
“I just put my hands around her neck and wouldn’t let go and buried them in the same grave,” he reportedly told police when he was arrested, local NBC affiliate WTWO reported at the time.
Friends and family had raised concerns about the victims’ well-being after they didn’t show up to school and work and could not be reached, WTWO reported. They were reportedly last seen on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, and their bodies were discovered days later, on Oct. 17, after cadaver dogs reportedly alerted police.
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Witnesses reportedly said Penick had previously acted violently toward the victims.
The murderer apparently had left a letter for his family indicating that he did not expect to have much of a life, if any, after being found out.
“Sorry I don’t know what is wrong with me and you all deserve better, I leave you three with my reminder life material items, any money I owe to you, and everything belongs to you,” he reportedly wrote. “Let go it’s okay now Breathe live love laugh prosper[.]”
He also reportedly called his dad after killing his son and the mother of his child.
“S— went south, and I can’t talk about it on the phone,” he said, according to WTWO.
Court records show that Penick pleaded guilty in July to two counts of murder. As part of that plea, additional charges of obstruction of justice, battery against a public safety official, and resisting law enforcement were dropped.
In his sentencing order, Greene Circuit Court Judge Erik C. Allen laid out the crime in stark terms.
“Defendant killed his ex-wife and current significant other and his own child, and he made great effort to conceal his actions,” his sentencing order said.
The judge noted the deliberate nature of both murders.
“The time it took to strangle the life out of his 14-year-old son,” the judge observed, gave him “time to reflect and stop before killing him.”
“It was at a later time that he killed Samantha, and this gap in time and the method of strangling her to death with his own hands gave him time to reflect and stop before killing her,” the judge added.
Allen ordered that the sentences be served consecutively, or one after the other. Penick will receive a credit of 348 days for time served.
