Inset, left to right: Shannon Patrick Overstreet (West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation), Angel Nichole Overstreet (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children). Background: Investigators at the Kentucky farm where Angel's burned body was discovered (WCHS).
A 53-year-old man in West Virginia will die in prison for killing his 3-month-old daughter and attempting to cover his tracks by stuffing the baby's body in a barrel and setting it on fire.
Cabell County Circuit Judge David Amsbary sentenced Shannon Patrick Overstreet on Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2021 slaying of Angel Overstreet, court records show.
The sentence followed a jury's guilty verdict on one count each of first-degree murder, child abuse resulting in death and concealing a dead body.
Overstreet was sentenced to life without mercy, meaning no chance of parole, on the murder charge and 15 years to life on the child abuse charge, with the sentences to be served consecutively.
The judge explained his reasoning for the life term at Monday's sentencing hearing.
"I do believe in the province of the jury, and I think they got it right," Amsbary said, according to a report from the Charleston Gazette-Mail. "So what strikes me is, frankly, Mr. Overstreet committed a heinous, grisly crime. Two, in fact, three actually. And it's the kind of crime that most decent people can't even imagine, and that's what really struck me."
He added, "I don't think any judge on this planet would find any other conclusion."
As Law&Crime previously reported, Angel was last seen alive in Huntington, West Virginia, in early May 2021. She was reported missing later that month. Overstreet, who initially told authorities that Child Protective Services had taken his daughter, was indicted for murder in December 2023.
Overstreet took the stand at trial and admitted that he lied about CPS taking Angel, local CBS affiliate WOWK reported. He reportedly went on to claim that his then-partner did something to Angel and she died in her sleep.
Overstreet testified that because he was a recovering addict, he was afraid to call law enforcement about his daughter's death, fearing they would not believe his story, according to Charleston-based ABC affiliate WCHS. Instead, Overstreet drove to his farm property in Kentucky, where he stuffed his daughter's body in a burn barrel and set it ablaze.
"I took her to Kentucky," Overstreet testified, per WCHS. "Angel was in the car with me. We go to Kentucky and I cremated my daughter. I know, I'm not proud of it. I don't know what I was thinking."
Police later recovered bone fragments from the barrel, which prosecutors presented as evidence during trial.
Prosecutor Philip Morrison lauded the court's decision to have Overstreet serve his sentences consecutively.
"When the jury declined to give him mercy, justice was served," Morrison told WOWK. "But as I told the court here this afternoon, we needed to sort of insulate this because, you know, it is what it is. Our system is such that once you get a conviction and a sentence, there's just litigation after that forever, and they try to chip away at sentences. So with the court sentencing him consecutively and the manner in which he did, I think it helps insulate the verdict."
Overstreet's defense attorney, Kerry Nessel, told the station that the result of the sentencing hearing "was expected," adding that Overstreet "knew what was going down."
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