WARSAW — After over two hours of deliberation and a guilty verdict, the jury still had one more decision to make, finding Terry Shaw guilty of being a habitual offender. The jury trial of Shaw finished this evening, Feb. 7, in Kosciusko County Superior Court One.

Terry Shaw

The guilty verdict for child molesting, a level 4 felony, was brought to the court at 4:30 p.m. After the verdict was read, the victim and her family shed a few silent tears.

“Welcome to the death sentence,” Shaw said out loud to the court as he tried to count how many years he would remain incarcerated with the addition conviction.

Judge David Cates scheduled the case to be sentenced at 9:30 a.m. March 1. A pre-sentence investigation was also ordered to be completed by the probation department.

The jury was then provided with a second phase of the conviction, a habitual offender charge. This was the first time the jury learned of this particular charge. Shaw was previously convicted of arson, a class B felony, in 2007 and convicted of robbery, a class C felony, in 2010.

Deputy Prosecutor Brad Voelz provided several documents to the court and jury that summarized the previous charges and the convictions. In order to be charged as a habitual offender, Shaw had to have been convicted of two previous, unrelated felony charges.

The jury was then asked to deliberate a second time on the new charge of habitual offender. A guilty verdict for the habitual offender offense was brought by the jury at 6 p.m.

The charge of child molesting can carry a sentence from two to 12 years as a level four felony and the habitual offender charge can carry a six to 20 year sentence.