Inset, left to right: Brianne Otley (Tribute Funeral Homes) and Zachery Gilbert (Darke County Sheriff's Office). Background: The area in Ohio where Gilbert killed Otley (Google Maps).
A 25-year-old man in Ohio avoided spending the rest of his life behind bars for killing his girlfriend, fatally shooting the 34-year-old mother of three in her children's room with her own gun.
Darke County Common Pleas Judge Travis L. Fliehman ordered Zachery S. Gilbert to serve 14 to 19 1/2 years in a state correctional facility for the 2024 slaying of 34-year-old Brianne Otley, court records show.
Gilbert had been facing charges of murder and tampering with evidence, but he reached a deal with prosecutors and on Monday he pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter with a firearm specification. His bench trial had been scheduled to begin on Dec. 19, 2025, just hours before his plea was entered.
According to a news release from the Greenville Police Department, officers and emergency medical personnel at about 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 26, 2024, responded to a home in the 700 block of Martin Street regarding a report of a woman being shot. Upon arriving, first responders found the victim, later identified as Otley, inside the home suffering from at least one gunshot wound. Medics immediately began lifesaving measures, but could not resuscitate Otley, who was pronounced dead at 9:17 p.m.
Police began searching for Gilbert, who had fled the scene on foot before they arrived. With the assistance of the Darke County Sheriff's office and Ohio Highway Patrol troopers, a perimeter was set up around the area of the shooting and Gilbert was quickly located and taken into custody.
Following his arrest, Gilbert "admitted to having his finger on the trigger when the gun was fired inside the bedroom," Court TV reported, citing a probable cause affidavit.
Gilbert reportedly said that he had been drinking for "a few hours" when he and Otley got into an argument because he believed "the victim was seeing another subject romantically." Otley had already broken up with Gilbert, but was allowing him to stay in her home until he found another place to live, Dayton CBS affiliate WHIO reported.
Prosecutors last week petitioned the court for the maximum sentence, a request the judge granted.
"The defendant's conduct in this case is completely in character," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. "He drinks, abuses drugs and he hurts people. He has been afforded treatment multiple times and does not comply. Only a lengthy incarceration will stop the defendant and protect the public from the defendant's actions. The impact of the defendant's action, when he killed Brianne, will be felt by her family, including her mother, sister, children, family, and friends for the rest of their lives. The defendant's selfishness in only thinking about himself cost Brianne her life."
Before sentencing, several of Otley's family members addressed the court and expressed their disappointment in the plea agreement.
"They swore they were going to fight this case. My sister was a fighter, she fought her whole life," Latasha Otley, the victim's sister, said in footage posted by WHIO. "He shot her in her kid's bedroom with her gun and left her lying there to bleed, kissed her on the cheek and ran out the door."
The victim's mother, Michelle Otley, told the judge she was "200% against this plea deal."
"Very betrayed, very betrayed," Michelle Otley said of prosecutors agreeing to the plea deal. "You dropped the ball on my daughter, you gave up on my daughter."
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