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Ashley Deziree Doss, 32, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years to life plus three years for a firearm specification in the fatal shooting of her boyfriend, Deon'te Taylor, 30, in Willoughby, Ohio.

The couple lived at Oakhill Apartments, Building 1, in the 38000 block of Oakhill Lane in Lake County. At about 2 a.m. on May 5, 2023, Willoughby police went to the apartment on a disturbance call. Doss and Taylor told officers they had been arguing and both wanted to stay in the apartment. Doss later told detectives the two argued often.

At about 3:20 a.m., a woman called Lake County Central Dispatch, said her boyfriend had been shot and asked for an ambulance. The call was transferred to Willoughby police dispatch, where the caller said she had shot him. Officers found Taylor unresponsive in the bedroom. Willoughby firefighters took him to University Hospitals Lake West Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. This happened about an hour after officers had been at the apartment.

Doss was arrested on the morning of Friday, May 5, 2023, and taken to the Willoughby Police Department for an interview with detectives. They first asked what she had told officers during the disturbance call, then pressed her about saying on her 911 call that someone shot her boyfriend. Doss said she was scared and panicking and did not mean to do it. Detectives told her nobody else was there, evidence from her shirt and hands would come back, and people sometimes took the blame for somebody else. She said she did not think the gun would go off. She described standing by a closet wall in the bedroom while Taylor walked toward the door to leave. Asked whether she had held the gun against him, she said no.

After review by the city prosecutor, Doss was charged with murder, felonious assault and domestic violence. She was arraigned by video in Willoughby Municipal Court on Monday, May 8, 2023, and held without bond in the Lake County Jail. A Lake County grand jury then indicted her on aggravated murder, murder and felonious assault. She pleaded not guilty at her August 31, 2023, arraignment in the Lake County Court of Common Pleas.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction lists her conviction in Lake County case 23CR000533 for one count of murder under Ohio Revised Code 2903.02, with Judge Jeffrey W. Ruple as the sentencing judge. No other offence appears on the prison record, and it does not say whether the conviction came from a guilty plea or a trial verdict. Her sentence took effect January 31, 2024, with 271 days of jail time credit, and she was admitted to the Ohio Reformatory for Women that day. The state lists April 29, 2041, as her parole eligibility date.

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Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.