[chris]

Kelly Dale Vokas was sentenced to 37 years to life on February 24, 2023, after pleading guilty to murder, involuntary manslaughter and aggravated burglary in the deaths of John Blanc, 77, and Susan Castore, 75, at their home in Prairie Township, Franklin County, Ohio.

Vokas, 43 at sentencing, withdrew her not guilty plea on December 16, 2022, and pleaded guilty to one count of each offense. Involuntary manslaughter was a stipulated lesser-included offense of murder. The remaining counts, including aggravated murder, were dropped. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Michael Holbrook imposed consecutive terms of 11 to 16 and one-half years each for aggravated burglary and involuntary manslaughter and 15 years to life for murder. The judgment entry was filed February 27, 2023. The sentence was the maximum possible on the charges.

On January 18, 2024, the Tenth District Court of Appeals of Ohio affirmed the sentence in State v. Vokas, 2024-Ohio-171. It remanded only for the trial court to include its consecutive-sentence findings in a corrected entry. No later development has been reported.

Vokas was about 40 in October 2020 and was described as a former neighbor of the couple, who lived in the 200 block of Carilla Lane in the Lincoln Village area. The killings occurred during what was described as a robbery at the home.

On Sunday, October 18, 2020, the Franklin County Sheriff's Office communication center received a 911 hang-up call from the couple's landline at 3:05 p.m. A return call reached a busy line. Deputies arrived at 3:26 p.m. and found locked doors with no sign of forced entry. Through a window, they saw a woman in a pink hoodie crouched in a hallway, pushing items into a purse. She ran toward the back of the house and tried to leave through the rear sliding door, where Deputy Jason Hollenbach handcuffed her. Her purse contained Blanc's and Castore's Ohio identification cards, Castore's checkbook and a bag of coins. Deputies identified her as Vokas from the ID in her purse and arrested her at the scene.

Inside, deputies found Blanc unresponsive on the first-floor bathroom floor. His autopsy found six stab wounds to the head and neck. Castore was found in the basement with a rope tied around her head, neck and body and a stab wound to the right side of her neck. Her autopsy found that she died of ligature strangulation. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

Deputies reviewed about 12 hours of doorbell camera video collected from two neighbors and found Vokas was the only person other than Blanc seen entering the home that day. At the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, she was read her rights and agreed to an interview. According to the prosecutor's statement of facts at the plea hearing, she eventually said she stabbed both victims. Near the end of the recorded interview, she says she needs an attorney. A Franklin County grand jury indicted her on October 26, 2020, on ten counts: one of aggravated burglary, two of aggravated robbery, two of aggravated murder, four of murder and one of tampering with evidence. She initially pleaded not guilty.