A 54-year-old Milwaukee man will spend the next two decades in prison for shooting and killing the mother of his children as she returned from dropping them off at the bus stop for school.
Ronald Fuller was sentenced to 20 years in prison by Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Laura Crivello on Aug. 27 for the death of 42-year-old Lakeyshia Timmons, a mother to eight, in April 2024.
The killing came at the end of a yearslong custody battle of Fuller and Timmons’ three young children. Timmons was awarded sole custody and primary placement of the children in February 2024. Fuller shot and killed Timmons April 1, 2024, outside her home in the 2700 block of North 18th Street.
Fuller claimed at sentencing that the killing had nothing to do with the custody battle. His attorney, Colin McGinn, emphasized Fuller’s upbringing, medical issues and drug use. Fuller, who had an absent father and mother with alcoholism, was in a crash in 2019 that left him permanently disabled and he’s also been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He had a minor criminal record in the 1990s, but it’s been more than 25 years since he’s had an issue and was maintaining a steady job, Crivello said.
But Timmons grew concerned for her safety and seemingly took all the right steps to stop Fuller from being near her. She filed a restraining order against Fuller in October 2023, but the court denied her request the same day. Family said she often reported Fuller to the police when he would harass her.
Lakeyshia D. Timmons, 42
“You try to get over the loss of your family member, but that makes it even worse, knowing that they were on the right path, and that they weren’t doing anything to nobody to even end up in a situation like that,” said Latanilia Timmons, Lakeyshia Timmons’ adult daughter, outside the courtroom. “Everybody knows that she tried to do her best to keep him away from where she stays.”
Fuller waited for nearly 30 minutes in an alley behind Timmons’ home and shot at her nine times as she arrived home from her morning routine of dropping the kids off at the bus stop, waiting for the school bus, and then grabbing a coffee before returning home. The ordeal was partially captured on a neighbor’s doorbell camera.
As the video was replayed at sentencing, a volume issue caused the sounds of the gunshots to ring out through the courtroom loudly, startling Timmons’ family in the gallery as many burst into tears.
Fuller was initially charged with first-degree reckless homicide, but agreed to plead no contest to second-degree reckless homicide with a use of a dangerous weapon modifier. The reduced charge resulted in significantly less jail time. When asked why a homicide caught in-part on video was reduced, Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Paul Tiffin told the Journal Sentinel that it was part of the plea process, but declined to provide details, as he rushed to another hearing.
“I don’t understand because it was the first-degree then all of a sudden it went to the second,” said Lakeyshia Timmons’ mother, Matanilia Timmons. “We never talked to (Tiffin) about that.”
Judge Crivello found the sentencing recommendation ‘grossly inaccurate’
Fuller, who doesn’t drink due to family history, admitted to using marijuana and ecstasy the day of the homicide, saying he took half of an ecstasy pill before the homicide and took the other half while in custody.
“I spent 17 months of being … regretful, sorry, apologetic, remorse(ful), and sometimes feeling suicidal,” Fuller said in his statement to the court. “I wish I had not taken the life of someone I love and created a family with.”
Fuller argued he went to the home to have a physical altercation with Lakeyshia Timmons’ adult son, but decided to shoot the mother of his children after she spotted him.
“I even was about to leave, prior to her pulling up, but once she pulled up, I noticed it was a little bit too late for me to walk away without her seeing,” so I killed her, Fuller said.
Crivello took exception with Fuller’s remarks. “That doesn’t make sense,” the judge said. “So what if she would have seen you?”
Circuit Court Judge Laura Crivello reads a letter at a hearing on Aug. 1.
“I struggle with whether or not I think you are remorseful,” Crivello added, “because how does a man who supposedly loves somebody kill them for no reason?”
Fuller’s 4-year-old daughter was inside the home at the time of the homicide. “Was there no forethought as to how you were destroying (your daughter’s life)?” Crivello said.
“The fact that all you can point to is, I took a hit of (ecstasy), and I was paranoid for doing that. It makes you extremely dangerous in my view. You had to bring the gun to the house. You had to bring yourself to the house. You had to wait there for 28 minutes for her to return. That’s premeditated in my mind.”
Crivello handed out the maximum sentence for the charge, but was taken aback by the writer of the pre-sentence investigation, who recommended that Fuller receive 6½ to 7 years of prison time.
“I stop and wonder, how do you get down to six-and-a-half years for taking a mother away from eight children? Six-and-a-half years when they will have the rest of their lives to deal with that pain and heartache. And to me, that makes no sense. I mean, this recommendation, I find to be grossly inaccurate as to what is an appropriate sentence.”
In addition to 20 years minus 513 days time served, Fuller will have 10 years of extended supervision when he is released from prison in his mid 70s.
Lakeyshia Timmons was a great mom, who ‘would come in a room and light it up’
Lakeyshia Timmons leaves behind a lot of family that were present in the gallery on Aug. 27, with some speaking in court.
“I know we all feel like we have the best mother, but I had the greatest mother in the world,” said Antoine Timmons, Lakeyshia Timmons’ 26-year-old son. “And I just wish Ron would have thought about what he did to my mother because since she has no longer been here, I honestly could say that my life has … it’s not been a living hell … but it’s not really a life anymore.
“I wish that he would have thought about the children that they had together, because now that she’s gone and he’s gone, I have to take care of their small children.”
Crivello said Lakeyshia Timmons fell on hard times in recent years but was able to reestablish a home for her children on the city’s north side. Family said Fuller and Lakeyshia Timmons’ children are still too young to fully understand what happened but they are doing OK, preparing for the new school year.
Antoine Timmons said people often tell him that he looks like his mother. “I tell people that she was the better part of me,” he said.
“My mom was the greatest mother,” he added. “She was kindhearted. She was just a light. She would come in a room and light it up. She was just so beautiful and kind and sweet, caring.”
It was clear at the emotional hearing at the muggy Milwaukee County Courthouse that Matanilia Timmons is the matriarch of the family.
“She was the only one I had. I had eight boys and one girl. That was my only daughter,” Matanilia Timmons said. “My heart will never be the same. But I thank her a legacy, leaving me my grandkids and my great-grandkids.”
Matanilia Timmons and community advocate Tory Lowe address the media following the homicide of 42-year-old Lakeyshia Timmons, a mother of eight.
Matanilia Timmons said she feels a “whole lot better” now that Fuller will be behind bars for 20 years, but “he shoulda got life.”
She added she can’t be content after her daughter tried to get help and was turned away.
Fuller gets to live, but all she has is memories of her daughter.
“I still wake up through the night, waiting for her phone calls,” she said. “Me and my grandkids be looking out the window, waiting on her to pull up in the van.
“But she’ll never be back. Life will never be the same. Holidays are not the same. But I got to stay strong for my kids, the grandkids, the great-grandkids.
“We’re gonna make it through this — me and my little circle.”
Drake Bentley can be reached at 414-391-5647or dbentley1@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee man gets 20 years for killing the mother of his children