MONROE, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man has been sentenced to demise for the 2019 homicide of his teenage daughter, in accordance with the native prosecutor’s workplace.
The Union County District Attorney’s Office mentioned in a information launch Friday {that a} jury handed the sentence down after about three hours of deliberations following the three-week trial of 35-year-old Joshua Lee Burgess.
Burgess killed his 15-year-old daughter, Zaria, after “psychologically and sexually torturing her for 22 hours,” the information launch mentioned.
“This was actually an particularly heinous, atrocious, and merciless killing of an harmless little one. This case was emotionally taxing for everybody concerned. We proceed to grieve with and pray for Zaria’s mom,” the information launch mentioned.
In addition to 1 depend of first-degree homicide, Burgess was convicted of 1 depend of statutory rape, three counts of statutory intercourse offense, and one depend of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. He acquired a further minimal of practically 76 years in jail for these offenses, in accordance with the information launch.
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Authorities mentioned on the time of Burgess’s arrest that he had walked right into a sheriff’s workplace and confessed to the killing.
TV station WSOC beforehand reported Burgess’s protection attorneys requested for his admission to be scrubbed from the document. It was not instantly clear who represented Burgess at trial or whether or not he would search an enchantment.
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