Thursday, December 12, 2024–11:00 a.m.
-Rachel Hartdegen, Rome News-Tribune-
This story is possible because of a news-sharing agreement with the Rome News-Tribune. More information can be found at northwestgeorgianews.com
Showing no remorse for the murder of his grandmother, the woman who raised him, a local man was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Wednesday.
Appearing virtually from the Floyd County Jail, Robert Keith Tincher III appeared uninterested in the sentencing hearing in Floyd County Superior Court.
During that hearing, he only assented that he understood what was taking place. Last week he pleaded guilty to killing his grandmother, Doris Cummings, stuffing her still alive into a freezer.
“He’s sociopathic,” Judge William “Billy” Sparks said during the sentencing. “There is no doubt in my mind in determining what punishment to impose here that Mr. Tincher should never have any opportunity of walking among free men.”
Despite his indifference, Cummings’ family said she loved her grandson.
“She loved Robbie; from the day he was born she loved him,” Cummings’ niece Tonie Chittom said Wednesday. “She took him in and loved him.”
Before the sentence was delivered, Chittom stood in front of the courtroom, asking for Tincher to be sentenced to life without parole.
“Our family was torn and we will never know why,” she said. “We would like to see him spend the rest of his life in prison without the opportunity to ever get out.”
She spoke on behalf of her family, more specifically her father who couldn’t attend the sentencing. Her father hasn’t recovered from losing his sister, she said, adding that her death has changed him.
“My father, who survived Vietnam, is one of the strongest men I’ve ever known in my life, and he is now a broken man,” she said.
A stark reminder of the crime sat in the middle of the courtroom during the sentencing: the freezer. It was in that freezer, face down and stuffed in a plastic bag, that Doris Cummings died.
She’d fallen in the shower, Tincher told police, and he decided she was brain dead and to dispose of her body. Prosecutors said he stuffed her in a trash bag and dragged her through the residence to put her in the freezer.
“How long she was alive in the freezer, nobody knows,” Assistant District Attorney Elisabeth Giuliani said.
Giuliani stated that Tincher has shown no remorse for his actions. At several points, prosecutors said, Tincher has stated that based on his belief system he didn’t think he did anything wrong.
“This is a particularly heinous crime and it’s a shame that the family has to be here on this day,” Judge Sparks said.
