Mom who drugged, shot daughters used girls as ‘leverage’ to get back at ex: ‘She decided to get rid of them’
The Virginia mother sentenced to nearly 80 years in prison for fatally shooting her two daughters after slipping them melatonin-laced gummies killed them when she could no longer use the girls as “leverage” over her ex-husband, he said Saturday.
Ron Youngblood — whose ex-wife Veronica Youngblood was given 78 years behind bars Friday for killing 5-year-old Brooklynn Youngblood and 15-year-old Sharon Castro five years ago — said the deranged murders had been a last-ditch effort to inflict pain on him.
“Those girls were leverage to her — leverage to get what she wanted from me,” the 52-year-old former Navy veteran solemnly told The Post.
“She obviously knew those girls were the most important things in my life.”
In August 2018, the Youngbloods had been living in Virginia and were set to move to Missouri together with their daughters.
Veronica Youngblood reneged on the move at the last minute and said she wanted to stay in the Old Dominion State with the girls, but a judge determined Brooklynn, Ron’s only biological daughter, could still move to Missouri with him, he said.
“When the judge made the decision I could leave with Brooklynn, she saw that she had no more tools to use against me, so she decided to get rid of them,” he added.
In a twisted act of revenge, Veronica Youngblood gunned down the girls as they slept in their McLean apartment after sedating them on Aug. 5.
Brooklynn, who was shot in the head, died at the scene. Sharon, who was struck in the chest and back, later died at the hospital.
The teen had managed to call 911 to inform the dispatcher that her sick mom was the shooter.
After hearing her call during the two-week trial, jurors were so traumatized that they asked if they could receive therapy.
As her eldest daughter lay dying, Veronica Youngblood called her ex-husband to tell him she hated him and had shot their children.
“She could do the one thing that could really hurt me and she had been trying it for years and she wasn’t successful at it until she murdered my girls,” Ron Youngblood said, adding that he had no idea his ex, who purchased the firearm nine days before the shocking murders, would kill her daughters.
“I wouldn’t put it past her that she would try to do something to me, but I never thought she would have done something to the girls.”
In March, Veronica Youngblood was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of felony firearm use.
She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, with her lawyer claiming that the Argentinian native heard voices, but the defense was rejected.
During sentencing, the jury heard testimony that the killer mom grew up in poverty, had been physically and sexually abused as a child and turned to sex work to take of her eldest daughter.
Ron Youngblood said that he had faith that the judge would impose that maximum sentence, but even with his ex spending the rest of her days rotting in jail, he will always mourn his daughters.
“They weren’t the most important things in my life — they were my life. That was all I really cared about. When she took that from me, it’s something I’ll never get back.”
