VEVAY, Ind. — A man will spend nearly 70 years in prison after he was found guilty of stabbing his father to death and torturing and mutilating four small dogs, according to the Switzerland County Prosecutor's Office.
According to prosecutor Ryan Marshall, 32-year-old Ryan Uopasarn, of Vevay, was sentenced to a total of 67 and a half years in prison for murdering his father and torturing the dogs in March of 2025.
A jury found Uopasarn guilty of one count of murder and four counts of mutilating and torturing animals in January.
Before his sentencing, Judge W. Gregory Coy heard statements from family members, who asked for a strong sentence without chances for early release.
"Ryan made choices," says a letter read aloud in court from a family member. "Those choices were not accidents. They were not forced upon him. They were conscious decisions that ended a life — the life of his own father. The seriousness of those choices demands a serious response. When a life is taken, when a family is shattered, the consequences must reflect the gravity of that harm. A sentence that minimizes the permanence of this loss would compound it. A sentence that allows for early release would prolong our anxiety and undermines any sense of closure we might one day find."
Coy sentenced Uopasarn immediately from the bench.
Marshall called Coy's sentence "thoughtful, appropriate and rendered fairly."
"While no prison sentence can ever bring back a life taken by another's violence, this sentence keeps other innocent people from ever experiencing that trauma at the hands of this defendant," Marshall said. "We thank the court for its swift justice and wish the family peace as they move through something so awful."
The sentence Uopasarn will now serve is the maximum sentence he could have faced, according to Marshall.
