In Virginia, Jennifer Mulligan’s plea spared her a first-degree murder trial, but the judge said her father’s alleged abuse could not justify killing him.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The judge sentencing Jennifer Mulligan acknowledged a case filled with allegations of childhood abuse, family trauma and difficult caregiving, then reduced the legal question to a stark principle: Whatever had happened before, Mulligan had no right to deliberately kill her 90-year-old father.
That distinction shaped the Aug. 4 sentencing of the 44-year-old Virginia Beach woman, who received 43 years in prison with 26 years suspended, leaving an active term of 17 years. Mulligan had pleaded guilty in April to second-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in the death of Woodard McClure. Circuit Court Judge Afshin Farashahi told her he had considered the substantial mitigation offered by her family and defense lawyer. He also noted that the plea agreement had already produced a significant legal benefit by reducing the original first-degree murder charge. The proceeding ended with punishment for an intentional homicide rather than a ruling on whether the painful history described by Mulligan’s family had occurred exactly as alleged.
Farashahi’s most pointed comments came as he contrasted the criminal process Mulligan received with the way McClure died. “You got due process and your father got a bullet in his head,” he told her, according to accounts of the hearing. “That’s not how we do things.” The statement was more than a rebuke. It explained why the judge could accept that the defense had presented meaningful evidence about Mulligan’s life while still imposing a long prison term. Sentencing courts may consider background and mitigation after a conviction, but in this case the judge treated those considerations as reasons to understand the offense, not as permission for Mulligan to decide her father’s punishment herself.
The plea agreement had already changed the stakes before Mulligan entered the sentencing courtroom. Police arrested her in May 2025 on first-degree murder and firearm charges, an accusation that put premeditation at the center of the case. Eleven months later, prosecutors agreed to reduce the homicide count, and Mulligan admitted guilt to second-degree murder instead. That agreement avoided a trial over the first-degree charge and gave both sides certainty about the conviction. It also shifted the remaining contest toward punishment, where the defense could present a broader account of Mulligan’s relationship with McClure and prosecutors could emphasize the deliberate steps she took on the morning he was killed.
The prosecution’s account was built partly from Mulligan’s own words. She called 911 after shooting McClure and told the dispatcher, “I just shot my dad.” Asked whether the shot had been accidental, she responded, “It was on purpose.” During the call, she accused McClure of being a child predator and rapist and said he was not a good person. Months later, jurists and attorneys heard the recording during a preliminary hearing. Those statements made it difficult to frame the death as an accident, and the physical evidence strengthened the prosecution’s argument that the shooting was intentional.
Earlier testimony and court presentations filled in the sequence. Prosecutors said Mulligan drank about three beers on May 7, 2025, before retrieving a .380-caliber handgun from the garage. She then went to her father’s bedroom, where he was in bed, and fired once into his head. Evidence presented at prior hearings indicated that the firearm was pressed against McClure’s forehead when it discharged. Mulligan later told detectives that she acted after thinking about what she said her father had done to her and her siblings. Asked to explain the killing, she said she had done what she believed was necessary “to take care of the agony.”
The defense answered that evidence not by disputing who fired the shot but by expanding the time frame. Whitus said the story began many years before the day police arrived on Rodney Lane. Mulligan accused McClure of physical, emotional and sexual abuse during her childhood. Her attorney said siblings corroborated important parts of those allegations. At sentencing, two half-brothers testified that McClure abused them as children and also abused Mulligan. The defense additionally said McClure had abducted Mulligan when she was young and kept her away from the rest of the family for years. Those claims supplied the mitigation Farashahi later said he had considered.
The defense then connected that childhood account to the circumstances of Mulligan’s adult life. She and McClure had spent years estranged before eventually reconnecting. When the Texas facility where the elderly McClure had been staying closed, Mulligan brought him to Virginia Beach and allowed him to live in her home. Her husband testified that she made that choice because McClure was family despite the past she described. Mulligan became one of his caregivers. Whitus said the arrangement brought daily conflict involving McClure’s treatment of Mulligan, relatives, pets and other people, while also reviving memories of what she said had happened decades earlier.
That history made the sentencing hearing different from the earlier bond fight. In June 2025, when Mulligan sought release before trial, prosecutors emphasized the mechanics of the killing and called it an “execution.” A lower court had granted bond with restrictions, but prosecutors appealed. Farashahi ultimately ordered Mulligan held. At that stage, the court had not yet received a guilty plea, and the state was still pursuing first-degree murder. By sentencing, Mulligan had formally admitted a lesser homicide offense, and the focus had moved from pretrial risk and probable cause to how much punishment the admitted crime required.
The September 2025 preliminary hearing served as a bridge between those stages. Prosecutors played the 911 call, and an officer described finding McClure dead when authorities reached the house. The hearing also put Mulligan’s allegations of abuse into the public court record and showed how the defense planned to respond to statements that otherwise appeared highly damaging. Whitus said there would be significant mitigating evidence to explain her admissions. The case was certified for further proceedings, eventually leading to the negotiated guilty plea rather than a contested murder trial.
The initial police response had been comparatively spare. The Virginia Beach Police Department said officers reached the 500 block of Rodney Lane at approximately 11:11 a.m. on May 7 after receiving a report of a shooting. They found McClure wounded inside, and medical personnel pronounced him dead at the scene. Mulligan, then 43, was detained without incident. Police described the matter as domestic-related and announced the first-degree murder and firearm charges after a Violent Crimes Unit investigation. The more complicated family narrative emerged later, through defense statements, recorded evidence and testimony in court.
By the time Farashahi imposed sentence, neither the intentional nature of the gunshot nor Mulligan’s role in it remained contested. What remained was a question of proportion. The judge recognized that the plea had reduced Mulligan’s sentencing exposure and that relatives had supported her account of a deeply troubled family history. At the same time, the facts accepted through her plea included a purposeful killing. That meant the court could treat the history as mitigating without treating McClure’s death as justified. Farashahi’s comments made clear that the criminal justice system, rather than personal retaliation, was the process he believed should have been used to address any crimes or abuse McClure may have committed.
Mulligan will serve 17 years under the sentence announced in August. The remaining 26 years are suspended, and authorities said she will be placed on supervised probation after release. She also must give up her gun and have no hostile contact with her siblings. Those conditions extend the judgment beyond the prison term and mark the final outcome of a case that began with a first-degree murder accusation but ended with a negotiated second-degree conviction. The court’s record now preserves both parts of the case: the family’s allegations about McClure and the judge’s conclusion that those allegations did not authorize Mulligan to take his life.
Author note: Last updated September 9, 2026.