{"id":277012,"date":"2026-09-02T03:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T03:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/277012\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T03:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T03:12:08","slug":"man-who-killed-girlfriend-and-left-her-body-in-trash-can-sentenced-to-10-20-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/277012\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who killed girlfriend and left her body in trash can sentenced to 10-20 years in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 A Philadelphia man has been sentenced to at least a decade behind bars for killing his girlfriend and dumping her body in a West Philadelphia trash can.<\/p>\n<p>Ricardo Ponds, 61, was sentenced on Tuesday to 10-20 years in prison, after he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/kywnewsradio\/news\/local\/man-pleads-guilty-woman-trash-can\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">pleaded guilty<\/a> in April to third-degree murder, abuse of corpse and a firearms charge.<\/p>\n<p>His girlfriend Deborah Leatherberry, 54, was found dead in a garbage can in Lucien Blackwell Park, along 47th Street near Fairmount Avenue, in Jan. 2025. Officials said she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/kywnewsradio\/news\/local\/man-arrested-womans-body-found-trash-west-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">had been shot<\/a> in the left side of the head.<\/p>\n<p>A park worker discovered her body. Detectives ultimately identified Leatherberry as the victim and Ponds as their suspect. Prosecutors had detailed a bloody scene found inside their apartment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 A Philadelphia man has been sentenced to at least a decade behind bars for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31,783,69,71,70,789],"class_list":["post-277012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-crime","tag-murder","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-sentencing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}