GEORGETOWN, S.C. (Court TV) — A South Carolina man was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murders of his ex-girlfriend and his close friend.
A jury convicted Ronnie Todd, Jr. of two counts of murder for the July 2022 shooting deaths of Emily Richitelli and John “Ashley” Altman.
Ronnie Todd appears in court during his double murder trial August 11, 2025. (Court TV)
Prosecutors argued Todd acted with “hate in his heart” when his own security cameras captured him loading firearms into his truck and driving off less than an hour before the 911 call came in reporting the shooting.
Todd had purchased tracking software that alerted him to Richitelli’s presence at Altman’s home on Fraser Street the night of July 20, 2022. Prosecutors argued that if Todd could not have Richitelli, he would not let anyone have her.
“When he gets there, he finds Ashley and Emily. He enters the home and he shoots them in the back of the head. Blows their brains out,” Solicitor Dylan Bagnal said.
According to investigators, Altman’s 9-year-old son heard the shooting from the bathroom and fled to a neighbor’s house afterward. In a 911 call at 12:13 a.m., the boy identified the shooter as his father’s close friend, Ron Todd, or “Uncle Ron” as the boy knew him.
Todd was arrested after a brief standoff on murder and weapons charges. The weapons charges were related to Todd’s felony record, which precluded him from owning firearms. But Todd was only tried on murder charges, and his criminal background did not come up in the trial.
Investigators collected security camera footage from Todd’s home that showed him retrieving firearms from a gun safe in his garage. Inside the safe, investigators found an obscure brand of 9mm ammunition with unique features, including a “corkscrew” top. The same brand of ammunition — Underwood – with similar features, was found at the shooting crime and in Altman’s body.
Todd did not confess to the shooting when he was arrested, but he answered questions about firearms. He told officers he had two firearms, one of which he had thrown out of his car onto the side of the road into a marshy area. Officers could not find the firearm despite an exhaustive search.
Two years later, Georgetown resident Josh Tilton found a rusty 9 mm pistol in the same area while picking up trash as part of drug court community service. Tilton said he considered selling it to subsidize his legal fees, but someone contacted law enforcement and turned it in. The firearm’s corroded condition prevented investigators from performing test fires or other evaluations. Prosecutors argued the discovery of the pistol showed it was right where Todd said it was all along. The defense tried to cast doubt on whether the pistol had any connection to the case.
Perhaps the most damning evidence came in the form of texts and conversations with friends in which Todd spoke of wanting to kill Altman and Richitelli. Todd’s defense argued that threats and angry words from a scorned lover don’t amount to murder and urged the jury to hold prosecutors to their burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
After hearing closing arguments, the jury took about 30 minutes to deliberate before convicting Todd of two counts of murder.
The trial went immediately into sentencing after the verdicts. Judge Michael Nettles sentenced Todd to life without the possibility of parole after hearing emotional victim impact statements from Richitelli’s mother and sister and Altman’s daughter. No one spoke for Todd, including himself, except for his lawyer.
