With the most serious charges against him dismissed for lack of clear evidence, Edward Kinslow was sentenced to eight years in prison Monday on a single charge of involuntary manslaughter.

The comparatively short prison sentence did not sit well with the family and friends of Darlene Day, who was found dead inside her home in May 2010.

Already a convicted rapist, Kinslow, 51, had been charged with murder, felony murder and rape in connection to Day’s death. As his case headed for trial, however, other evidence and other interpretations of the evidence came to the forefront.

While Kinslow’s DNA was found on Day’s body, there was also DNA present from an unknown person, and another person admitted to having sex with Day on the day she died, prosecutors said in January.

In January, Kinslow pleaded guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He admitted to killing Day while trying to commit battery.

While the Allen County Coroner’s Office ruled Day died from blunt-force trauma to her head, a defense expert witness, Dr. Gregory Davis of the University of Kentucky, determined Day died from an unknown cause, according to Kinslow’s attorneys Anthony Churchward and David Zent.

Cocaine was found in Day’s body as well, and the bleeding on her brain could have been caused by the amount of time between her death and the discovery of her body, Churchward said at the time of the guilty plea.

And prosecutors said their experts could not rule out the defense team’s discoveries.

Kinslow said little Monday morning when Allen Superior Judge John Surbeck sentenced him, saying only he was “truly sorry the way things turned out.”

Surbeck noted Kinslow’s extensive criminal history, including an arrest for rape and sodomy while in the military and a 2003 conviction for rape.

After the hearing, Day’s nephew and other friends and family cried and expressed outrage at the eight-year sentence, the maximum for a Class C felony.

Larry Morgan, Day’s longtime companion and a former friend of Kinslow’s, said if he had the opportunity, he would take matters into his own hands.

“He deserves to be six feet under,” Morgan said.

Morgan said both he and Day offered help to Kinslow upon his release from prison, such as finding him a job.

“We treated him like family,” Morgan said.

Immediately after Day’s death, when Morgan saw Kinslow again, he said Kinslow couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I knew he did something,” he said.

An eight-year prison sentence brings little satisfaction to him and certainly not to Day’s memory, Morgan said.

“She will always be in my heart and my mind,” he said.

rgreen@jg.net