A woman who had initial charge of manslaughter bumped up to murder has now made a plea deal for manslaughter.
Lauren Jarvis, 37, was initially charged with second-degree manslaughter in connection to a March 10, 2025, shooting that led to the death of her boyfriend, Ryan Patrick Jobe.
According to reports at the time, Jobe, 40, was pronounced dead after emergency medical services arrived at the scene that night. In an early interview with Sheriff Chip Stauffer, the sheriff said that it appeared Jarvis and Jobe were testing a bulletproof vest.
After a preliminary hearing on March 19, 2025, the manslaughter charge was amended up to wanton murder. Dax Womack, the attorney who represented Jarvis, argued in the preliminary hearing that anyone who wanted to commit murder would not have waited for a victim to put on a bulletproof vest before firing. He described the death as an accident.
On Monday, Jarvis was sentenced to 12 years after accepting a plea deal which dropped the murder charge back down to second-degree manslaughter, said Commonwealth’s Attorney Herb McKee. She will serve seven years for the manslaughter and five years for tampering with physical evidence, McKee said.
The commonwealth’s attorney said that Jarvis must serve 85% of her sentence, or 10.2 years, before she will be eligible for parole.
McKee said agreeing to the plea was not an easy decision.
“It was a tough case for our office, considering how extremely reckless the actions were,” he said.
But the plea deal came after a lot of consultation with Jobe’s family and the sheriff’s office, which investigated the case, McKee said.
A release from the commonwealth’s attorney’s office said that the family believed a 12-year sentence “was adequate justice for the senseless acts and did not want the case to be tried.”
