Man sentenced to 27 years for murdering girlfriend at her home while her child was asleep

Darnell Sterling, a 57-year-old Washington, D.C. resident, received a 27-year prison sentence for the murder of his girlfriend, whose body has never been found.

On October 3, 2022, Sterling was found guilty of second-degree murder and contempt in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Superior Court Judge Maribeth Raffinan also ordered five years of supervised release following Sterling’s prison term.

Evidence presented by the prosecution revealed that Sterling fatally attacked his 34-year-old girlfriend, Olga Ooro, in the early hours of July 17, 2020. The assault occurred inside Ooro’s apartment on the 300 block of Massachusetts Avenue NW. Sterling committed the crime while Ooro’s seven-year-old son slept in his bedroom.

After the murder, Sterling cleaned the crime scene, left the building, and returned the following night to retrieve Ooro’s body from a concealed location. He used her keys to enter the building, loaded her body into his car, and disposed of it.

Ooro was reported missing when her son was found wandering their apartment building. At the time of the murder, Sterling had been under a court order to stay away from Ooro due to his arrest for assaulting her on April 20, 2020.

Sterling was taken into custody for the murder on July 23, 2020, and has remained in custody since that time.