VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia — Jennifer Mulligan walked into that courtroom having already admitted to everything. She shot her 90-year-old father once in the head while he sat in bed. She made no attempt to hide it. She called 911 herself.
But on Tuesday, it was the judge’s words — not the sentence — that silenced the room.
“You got due process,” Judge Afshin Farashahi told her. “Your father got a bullet in his head. That’s not how we do things.”
A morning that ended one life and changed another
On May 7, 2025, Virginia Beach police responded to a home on Rodney Lane after Mulligan called 911. When the dispatcher asked if the shooting was accidental, she said simply: “It was on purpose.”
Officers found Woodard McClure dead in his bedroom. The gun had been pressed against his forehead.
Mulligan later told detectives she “did what she had to do to take care of the agony” — pointing to decades of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse she said her father inflicted on her and her siblings throughout their childhood.
A complicated past the court could not ignore
McClure had moved into Mulligan’s home two years before the shooting, after the Texas nursing home where he lived shut down. She became his caregiver — a role her husband testified became overwhelming given the trauma she associated with him.
Her two half-brothers took the stand and corroborated her abuse claims, describing a painful childhood none of them chose.
The judge said he weighed all of it. He called her plea agreement “a great result” given what she originally faced.
Then he sentenced her to 43 years, with 26 suspended — leaving 17 years to serve.
Justice served, but questions remain
This case forces an uncomfortable question that courtrooms rarely answer cleanly — what do you do when the victim and the villain share the same history?
What do you think — did justice get it right here? Share your thoughts in the comments.