Man Goes through a lot to get where he's at

Levell Ricks beat a lot of problems to make it to age 20. He beat lymphoma with chemotherapy to become cancer-free. He overcame his mother's death and other problems as a teen. But he couldn't beat a murder charge. Ricks was sentenced last week to 23 years to life in prison. The Mount Auburn man was convicted in February of murder, felonious assault and being a felon with a weapon. He shot Richard Oldham fives times on Mother's Day. Oldham, 30, of Evanston, was the father of three. Police found his body on the sidewalk. "Without my daddy, I feel lost," Oldham's son, Ricardo Dixon, 10, told Ricks on Thursday. "I want to know why you would take my daddy from us." "I didn't do it," Ricks said. A jury - and Oldham's family - said he did."When he reached for that gun, he knew what he was doing. He wasn't going hunting for no animals," Demetrius Stanton, Oldham's uncle, said Thursday. Ricks' attorney, John Issenmann, asked Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge John "Skip" West for leniency. "His behavior is the result of the way he's been raised," Issenmann said. When he killed Oldham, Ricks was on probation for robbery and aggravated robbery. Ricks' sister asked for mercy because their mother is dead and she only has her two brothers. Her other brother, Levar Ricks, 18, is in the Hamilton County Justice Center awaiting trial on a separate murder charge. Levar Ricks is accused of the March 7 fatal shooting of Israel Barton during a robbery. His case is next in court May 8.