Joliet man gets 50 years for shooting son in head
SUN-TIMES MEDIA August 6, 2012 4:30PM
Roderick Tademy
Updated: August 6, 2012 6:13PM
A Joliet man was sentenced to 50 years in prison Monday for shooting his then-12-year-old son in the head just days before Christmas in 2010.
In June, a jury deliberated for 35 minutes before convicting Roderick Tademy, 37, of attempted murder, aggravated battery to a child and aggravated battery with a firearm.
Will County Judge Sarah Jones sentenced Tademy to the prison term on Monday. He had faced up to life behind bars.
During Tademy’s trial, the boy’s mother, Antoinette Tademy, said she was getting ready in a bedroom to take their three children to the mall Dec. 20, 2010, when she heard a “loud clap.” Roderick Tademy then walked in holding a gun and tried to hit her with it. He also accused the boy of trying to molest one of his sisters.
Roderick Tademy’s lawyers said he suffered from schizophrenia, and Antoinette Tademy said he sometimes experienced delusions that made him see things like vampires.
Antoinette Tademy said Roderick Tademy had been drinking since 7 a.m. that day and finished half a large bottle of vodka. Though she said he didn’t act drunk, the drinking tended to bring on his delusions.
The victim, Obedyah Tademy, is now in a long-term care facility in Bloomingdale, his mother said. He can’t breathe, walk or talk on his own.
Prosecutors Monday said he was sitting on his couch and playing video games when his father shot him in the head with a .22-caliber handgun.
“Roderick Tademy committed an unthinkably brutal crime against his own son,” Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow said in a press release. “Instead of loving and protecting his son at all costs, just as every father should, Roderick Tademy inflicted terrible harm on this innocent young boy.”
