Just over nine months after Sherri Sweet’s murder in her Brattle Street home, her domestic partner, Jeremiah Godfrey, has been sentenced to 38 years in prison for killing her.
The state Attorney General’s office said the prosecution and defense agreed on the sentence handed down last week by Superior Court Justice Nancy Mills after Godfrey, 44, pleaded guilty to a charge of murder in the fatal shooting of Sweet, a 37-year-old mother of two young children and 2005 graduate of Marshwood High School.
The State is seeking more than $496,000 in restitution from Godfrey to provide for the children, but Mills has yet to determine the amount, according to Dana Hayes, director of public affairs for the Attorney General’s office.
Mills said at the sentencing hearing Jan. 9 that she approved the plea deal struck by attorneys for the state and the defendant because in pleading guilty Godfrey was accepting responsibility and sparing Sweet’s family a trial.
On March 22, 2025, South Berwick police answered a 911 call from Godfrey, who reported a shooting at 44 Brattle St., where he and Sweet lived. He told police he had had an argument with his girlfriend.
“Godfrey described a struggle over the gun, and [said] Sweet sustained a gunshot wound and was unresponsive,” the Maine State Police said at the time. State police and York Ambulance had been summoned to the home by the South Berwick Police Department. “First responders arrived at the scene and rendered aid [before] Sweet was transported to the Portsmouth Regional Hospital.”
During interviews with Godfrey the night of the shooting, a State Police homicide detective reported he heard Godfrey yell, “I can’t believe I did that.”
Sweet died the next day.
According to a report issued by the State Police, a major crimes unit obtained a warrant for murder and Godfrey was arrested in South Berwick on March 26 and transported to the York County Jail.
In a Facebook post Jan. 9, the South Berwick police attributed the “successful conclusion of the case to teamwork by members of the South Berwick Police Department, Maine State Police, the Maine Attorney General’s Office and the Sanford Regional Communication Center.”
Asked for more specifics related to Godfrey’s sentencing, Police Chief David Ruger said in an email, “I cannot comment on Maine State Police cases. Please reach out to the MSP CID (Criminal Investigation Division) for any comments on the Godfrey case.”
Sweet’s mother, Diana Palmer, attended the sentencing hearing and told the court she and her husband now live in her daughter’s home and care for her two grandsons, according to a report in the Jan. 10 edition of the Portland Press Herald.
“Believe me,” Palmer told the court, “if it wasn’t for the boys, keeping their lives normal as possible, I would not (live there).”
