By Cory Shaffer
cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland firefighter Johnny Tetrick’s three daughters told a judge on Tuesday that they wanted justice for the man who killed their father in a hit-skip crash last November.
But they had another message: They forgive Leander Bissell, because that’s what Tetrick would have done.
“I do not hate you,” Eden Tetrick, 18, told Bissell. “I think that would be a lot easier.”
The youngest daughter then told Bissell through tears: “I hope I see you in heaven as a brother in Christ.”
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Timothy McCormick then sentenced Bissell, 41, of Cleveland, to life in prison with no chance at parole until he spends 16 years behind bars.
Bissell’s voice shook at times as he apologized to Tetrick’s daughters.
“Y’all deserve justice,” Bissell said. “It’s your responsibility to keep his legacy alive, just as I want my daughters to do the same with me.”
Bissell maintained that he did not mean to hit Tetrick and was not a murderer.
“A family hero, a community hero, is gone,” Bissell said. “My actions make my soul shake.”
McCormick found Bissell guilty of murder and a host of other charges after a three-day trial last month.
Tetrick’s Engine 22 company was called to a crash about 8:15 p.m. on Nov. 19. A car had flipped over in the left lane of Interstate 90 east, just after the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard exit, and an off-duty Cleveland police officer had stopped on the right shoulder.
Several police cars pulled into the left two lanes to funnel traffic to the right two lanes in the minutes after the crash.
Tetrick was picking up debris in the roadway when Bissell, who was caught on state transportation security cameras driving in the closed lanes and going around the police cars, slammed his Malibu into Tetrick and launched the firefighter’s body more than 100 feet across the highway. A Bratenahl police detective testified that he calculated Bissell was driving 49 mph when he struck Tetrick. The force of the impact ripped off pieces of the Malibu’s front bumper.
Investigators tied Bissell to the crime from debris to figure out that the car was a white Malibu. They then obtained a list of all similar cars registered to owners with addresses on Cleveland’s East Side, where the car exited the highway. That gave them Bissell’s name and address on Ridpath Avenue. Investigators found surveillance video from an apartment building next to Bissell’s showing him parking the Malibu with front-end damage minutes after Tetrick was struck.
Police arrested Bissell about four hours after the Tetrick’s death.
Investigators also found that Bissell was at a cigar lounge in Tremont earlier that evening. The man who invited him sent Bissell a photograph of two bottles of bourbon on a counter at the bar.
Bissell also pleaded guilty to felony drug trafficking charges after police investigating the crash found methamphetamine in his car.
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