A jury has spared a Queens, New York man from the death penalty for the fatal shooting of a couple during a robbery attempt at their Fairfiled, Conn. jewelry shop in 2005.
The Bridgeport Superior Court jury decided on Friday that Christopher DiMeo should spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance for parole.
DiMeo was convicted in February of killing jewelers Kim and Tim Donnelly.
As he was talking to the couple about engagement rings on that day almost 11 years ago, DiMeo pulled out a gun and fired four shots into Tim Donnelly as Kim screamed, the Connecticut Post reports. Then he shot her five times and proceeded to fill a shopping bag with jewelry.
His girlfriend, Nicole Pearce, testified to DiMeo's guilt from her hospital bed as she suffered from terminal cancer, the Post reported.
When DiMeo was sentenced on Friday, he was already serving a life sentence for the murder of Long Island jewelry store owner, Thomas Renison, in 2004.
He took a plea deal to spare his mother, Maryann Taylor, who was arrested, accused of casing Renison's jewelry store for her son, the Connecticut Post reported.
DiMeo’s lawyers said he didn't deserve the death penalty and put witnesses on the stand who blamed his circumstances on his mother's and his own drug use.
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But prosecutor Joseph Corradino argued that Kim Donnelly saw her husband killed in front of her and felt the terror of her own impending death.
