A jury recommended a sentence of life without parole in the case of a man convicted of the killings of a woman and her three children slain last year in their Fort Wayne home.
An Allen County Superior Court jury found 22-year-old Cohen Hancz-Barron of Fort Wayne guilty Thursday of four counts of murder following a seven-day trial in the June 2021 deaths of his girlfriend and her three children.
Prosecutors asked that the jury recommend life in prison without parole for Hancz-Barron. The bodies of 26-year-old Sarah Nicole Zent; her sons, 5-year-old Carter and 3-year-old Ashton; and 2-year-old daughter Aubree were found June 2 in a Fort Wayne home.
According to Indiana court records, Hancz-Barron pleaded guilty to robbery as a level 5 felony in 2020 in Starke County, and was given a six-year suspended sentence to be served on electronic home monitoring.
According to Stark County documents, Hancz-Barron was allowed to serve his sentence at a residential treatment facility in Tippecanoe County. On April 19, 2021 he cut his ankle monitor and escaped.
He was wanted by police at the time of the killings.
