COLUMBUS — A Reynoldsburg home day care operator who shook a 5-month-old boy to death will spend life in prison. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Bill Sperlazza sentenced Tammra R. Straughter, 54, on Oct. 7, nearly three years after the death of Kashan R. Crawford-Chatman. She will be eligible for parole after serving at least 15 years.
A Franklin County jury found Straughter guilty Aug. 20 of murder and endangering children. On Oct. 9, 2023, she was caring for Kashan, his twin brother and six other children alone at her home on White Butterfly Lane in Reynoldsburg when the baby began struggling to breathe. His mother, Stacia Crawford, rushed him to urgent care and then to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where doctors found bruising across his body, two jaw fractures and severe head trauma. He died on Oct. 13.
Prosecuting attorney Scott Sugarman told the court the deputy coroner described the infant’s brain as one of the most swollen he had ever seen, strongly suggesting abusive head trauma from violent shaking. Straughter had told police the baby choked on formula — a claim investigators rejected after recovering surveillance footage and texts in which she called the infant “fussy.”
Crawford and the boy’s father, Jontue Chatman, addressed the court at sentencing. The court credited Straughter with 54 days already served. The case began with her indictment and arrest in February 2024 and ended with the life sentence — closing one of Franklin County’s most closely watched child-homicide cases of the year.
