A New York man who shot and killed two owners of a Fairfield jewelry store in 2005 was sentenced on to life in prison without the possibility of release on Friday.
Christopher DiMeo, 29, of Queens, N.Y, gunned down husband and wife Tim and Kim Donnelly in the jewelry shop they owned during a robbery attempt.
He has waived his right to appeal the conviction.
He shot Tim through his chest and arms four times, Tim’s brother, Paul, wrote in the New York Times. Kim witnessed her husband’s slaying, screamed and held her hands up before being shot and killed herself, Paul Donnelly said. Her body was found curled up on the floor with a phone underneath her. She’d been shot five times.
"My mother begged you for her life and you refused," Eric Donnelly, the victims' son, said in court. "Six years later, you asked a jury of twelve strangers for the same mercy, and they gave it to you. I hope that fact is not lost on you."
Other family members spoke at the sentencing in Bridgeport Superior Court as well.
"You're a liar, a thief, a murderer and a coward," Tim Donnelly's brother Chris said to DiMeo. "I would like to say I hope you wake up every day in anguish over what you've done, but the fact of the matter is, I don't care how you wake up. I don't care about you at all."
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DiMeo also had a chance to speak.
"I'm sorry for what I've taken from you. I'm sorry for the pain in your lives," DiMeo told his victims' families. When the Donnellys were killed, they left behind two children -- Eric and Tara. "I'm sorry, especially to you Eric, for taking your parents."
"That was the first time he did apologize," Tara Donnelly, the victims' daughter said after the sentencing Friday. "I think that the only people who could offer him forgiveness aren't here."
"This part of things, the trial, the murder, all the things that come with it, the six years worth of waiting, we let that go now and we move on," Eric Donnelly said. "We have the rest of our lives. Our parents will always be our parents. That never goes away, nor should it. You move on from here and live the rest of your lives."
DiMeo is already serving a life prison sentence in New York for killing Long Island jewelry store owner Thomas Renison in 2004.
A Connecticut jury convicted DiMeo of capital felony and murder in February, but spared him from the death penalty last month. Capital felony carries only two possible penalties: lethal injection or a true life prison sentence.
