By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – Nicholas Compton will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Compton was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for murder charges plus 39 years for other charges stemming from the death of three-year-old Robbie Cramer in March 2013.
“As far as the law allows, justice was done,” Assistant State’s Attorney Adam Ghrist said. “The case was very difficult to present, but it was put together very, very well by the investigating agencies: The Normal Police Department and the Department of Children and Family Services.”
Numerous family and friends, including Compton’s mother, testified at the sentencing hearing about how good Compton’s character was and how good of a father he was to his own child, Anthony. Ghrist responded with the fact that Compton was convicted of domestic battery in July 2011.
Compton was dating Cramer’s mother, Danielle Fischer, at the time of Cramer’s death. Compton moved in with Fischer and Cramer roughly 19 days before Cramer’s death, and Judge Charles Feeney said Cramer was living in “an imprisoned hellhole” for those 19 days.
The fatal injury, according to a forensic pathologist who testified during the trial, was a blow to Cramer’s back suffered on March 15. Cramer died 11 days later on March 26 from peritonitis and was noticeably sick during that time. Surveillance video from a Wal-Mart the night before Cramer’s death was shown during the trial, and Feeney said Thursday it was “readily apparent” in that video that Cramer should have been taken to a medical facility for treatment, not “Wal-Mart, of all places.”
Fischer is scheduled to appear in court May 29 on charges of murder and endangerment of a child. A jury trial is scheduled for Sept. 14.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].
