Shawn Kavanagh gets life for Valentine’s Day stabbings – A 32-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison without probation or parole for a stabbing spree that killed a woman, a mother and her 7-year-old son, who reportedly tried to protect her, in an attack that prosecutors said was prompted by the man’s fear that his then-wife was having a sexual relationship with one of the victims.
Shawn Kavanagh was sentenced on Tuesday in Missouri after being convicted on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree domestic assault, first-degree burglary, and armed criminal action, authorities said.
From left: Mason, 7, Mason’s mother, Lexy Vandiver, and Tara Lynn Fifer were fatally stabbed in 2014 in Missouri. Shawn Kavanagh, right, was sentenced for their murders. (Photos from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)Shawn Kavanagh gets life for Valentine’s Day stabbings
He was convicted of stabbing his then-wife, Jessica Powell, Tara Lynn Fifer, 22, Lexy Vandiver, 29, and Vandiver’s 7-year-old son, Mason, on Valentine’s Day, 2014, near Jonesburg, Missouri, prosecutors said. Jonesburg is more than 80 miles west of St. Louis.
Powell survived. A total of 75 stab wounds had been inflicted on the four victims, prosecutors said. The court learned at trial that Mason died trying to protect his mother, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
He had been facing the death penalty in the bench trial, but St. Charles County Circuit Judge Rebeca Navarro-McKelvey reportedly decided on the lesser punishment because he called 911, confessed and provided evidence of his mental disorders.
