Teen's Killer To Spend Life in Prison

April Dawn Pennington disappeared in 1996 and her body has never been found. And today, the man found guilty on the kidnapping, rape and murder of the 15-year-old will be sentenced on Monday.

George Leniart, 44, of Montville, was sentenced this week in New London Superior Court to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the Day of New London reports.

"You took the life of a beautiful 15-year-old girl for your own gratification," Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed told Leniart, according to the Day.

This case is one of the few successful murder convictions to happen in the state without a body or physical evidence, the Norwich Bulletin reported in March.

“George Leniart liked to brag about the rape and murder of April Dawn Pennington,” prosecutor Stephen Carney said during closing arguments, the Bulletin reported.

Leniart was arrested in 2008 after authorities say he told his prison cellmate that he raped and killed Pennington. You can read more about the case here.

Leniart was in prison at the time for raping a 13-year-old girl just six months before Pennington disappeared.

Pennington's parents, Walter and Hazel Pennington, who now live in Pleasant Garden, N.C., have said they're frustrated because they still don't know what happened to their daughter.

 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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