LA PLATA, Md. — 36-year-old Travis Edward Paschal Wood was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the First-Degree Murder of his wife, Shawnda Nicole Wood, and Use of a Firearm During the Commission of a Crime of Violence in connection with the murder last Thursday.
On December 9, 2022, Wood and his cousin visited the Charles County Sheriff’s Office District Three Station in Waldorf.
The 36-year-old told authorities he had been suicidal, asked for a welfare check at his home, and asked for a lawyer, without giving additional context.
When police arrived to the home in the 2300 block of Tawny Drive, they would find Shawnda who has been shot once in the back of her head and a silver and black handgun on the couple's bed.
After a preliminary investigation revealed that the night before the shooting, Wood and Shawnda went out to eat and shop with their three young daughters. After taking them home and putting them to bed, the couple then went back out for drinks at a hookah lounge.
They would get back home at 2 a.m.
Wood then urinated on the floor outside the bathroom. Shawnda approached him about it, telling him he needed to be out of the house by the weekend.
After she went to sleep, Wood shot her one time in the back of the head with the silver and black handgun according to police.
The following morning, on December 9th, Wood woke his daughters up, telling them they were going to go to their grandmother's (his mother's) house and told them not to wake up their mother. He later dropped them off and went back home.
Wood stayed home for a few hours, then went back to his mother's house.
He told his mother that he shot and killed Shawna before going back to his house for a while, then going to the police station.
During sentencing, Assistant State’s Attorney John Stackhouse told the judge that the victim “left behind grandparents, a mom and dad, sisters – obviously she left behind her three little girls – cousins, uncles, and aunts. It’s generational trauma that [the defendant] has caused.”
He furthered, “These three little girls had to be taken out of their house, school, and neighborhood. They had to be taken away from all their friends. All those things are a result of his actions. Their lives have been changed forever. [The victim] never got the opportunity to do Girl Scouts with her girls, see them play sports, go on their first date, graduate high school or college, get married, or have kids."
Asking for life plus 20 years in prison, he told the Honorable Judge West that Wood “gave his family a life sentence.”
Before sentencing Wood to life plus 15 years, the Honorable Judge West stated that “The loss is tremendous. It was done in the coldest of blood, and I don’t understand it. The level of violence was extreme. The callousness that followed is rarely seen. The damage done to two families was excessive and permanent.”
