Last suspect in body dumping case gets 6 months in jail
NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) (March 21, 2023) – The Mill Township man charged alongside his uncle for the discovery of an accidental shooting victim’s body in his parked car will be spending the same amount of time behind bars.
37-year-old Michael P. Reynolds is three weeks into a 180-day jail stay for abusing John Q. Bashline’s corpse and tampering with evidence. Judge Michael Ernest handed down that punishment and ordered an identical one for Reynolds’ nephew this morning.
“It really is a desire, at least on my part, to remain as consistent as possible when I can. Sometimes you can. Sometimes you can’t. In this case, I think your conduct here is very similar to Michael’s.”
The nephew is 27-year-old Dominic Reynolds. His public defender described him as an upstanding member of society who let fear cloud his judgment.
“Dominic is fully employed. He is the only person employed in his family, his wife and two children, two daughters… Dominic is a productive citizen. He’s what we want, and this a the most egregious aberration in his life that one can imagine.”
37-year-old Dalbert Sanders shot and killed Bashline on May 15th while drinking and playing with a handgun after a birthday party. He hatched the plan to cover up what happened by putting Bashline’s body in his car and leaving it parked near Trinity Hospital. Prosecutor Ryan Styer says the Reynoldses had another option but went along with it.
“It’s as simple as calling 911 and getting authorities involved and not getting caught up in the schemes of someone who didn’t want to get caught and who they may have had some level of fear with regard to, but they put themselves in that situation and made the wrong decision.”
Here’s what Dominic had to say about what happened:
“The only thing that I can say is it’s just one moment I put fear in front of faith, and I knew that was wrong.”
Sanders is serving 3 to 8 years in prison. Ernest had him taken into custody immediately but is letting Dominic self-report to jail next Tuesday at 9 am to begin his punishment.