He said Saturday that the Virginia mother sentenced to nearly 80 years in prison for fatally shooting her two daughters after giving them melatonin-laced gummies ki*lled them because she could no longer use the girls as “leverage” over her ex-husband.
Ron Youngblood, whose ex-wife Veronica Youngblood was sentenced to 78 years in prison on Friday for ki*lling Brooklynn Youngblood, 5, and Sharon Castro, 15, five years ago, said the deranged mur*ders were a last-ditch effort to inflict pain on him.
“Those girls were leverage to her — leverage to get what she wanted from me,” the 52-year-old former Navy veteran told The Washington Post solemnly.
“She obviously knew those girls were the most important things in my life.”
The Youngbloods had been living in Virginia and were planning to relocate to Missouri with their daughters in August 2018.
Veronica Youngblood backed out of the move at the last minute, saying she wanted to stay in Virginia with the girls, but a judge ruled that Brooklynn, Ron’s only biological daughter, could still accompany him to Missouri, he said.
“When the judge made the decision I could leave with Brooklynn, she saw that she had no more tools to use against me, so she decided to get rid of them,” he stated.
After sedating the girls, Veronica Youngblood gunned them down as they slept in their McLean apartment on Aug. 5.
Brooklynn died at the scene after being shot in the head. Sharon died at the hospital after being struck in the chest and back.
The teen had called 911 and informed the dispatcher that her sick mother was the shooter.
After hearing her call during the two-week trial, jurors were so traumatized that they asked if they could receive therapy.
Veronica Youngblood called her ex-husband as her eldest daughter was dying to tell him she hated him and had shot their children.
“She could do the one thing that could really hurt me, and she had been trying for years and she wasn’t successful at it until she m*urdered my girls,” Ron Youngblood said, adding that he had no idea his ex, who bought the firearm nine days before the shocking mu*rders, would ki*ll her daughters.
“I wouldn’t put it past her that she would try to do something to me, but I never thought she would have done something to the girls.”
Veronica Youngblood was found guilty in March of two counts of first-degree mu*rder and two counts of felony firearm use.
Her lawyer claimed that the Argentinian native heard voices and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the defense was rejected.
The jury heard testimony during sentencing that the ki*ller mom grew up in poverty, was physically and sexually abused as a child, and turned to sex work to support her eldest daughter.
Ron Youngblood expressed confidence that the judge would impose the maximum sentence, but even if his ex spends the rest of her days in prison, he will always mourn his daughters.
“They weren’t the most important aspects of my life; they were my life.” That was all I was concerned with. She took something from me that I’ll never get back.”
