MIAMI – A man convicted of strangling an American Airlines employee with a phone cord in 1997 was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison.
Jurors deliberated for just a few hours last month before finding Sampson guilty of second-degree murder, the Miami Herald reported.
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Anthony Sampson, 50, was also sentenced to an additional 85 years in prison for his conviction on armed robbery and grand theft charges.
The victim, Casey Sigler, 41, was found dead in May 1997 inside a ransacked South Beach apartment in the 1600 block of Lenox Avenue.
According to the newspaper, Sampson admitted to the murder more than a decade later after his palm prints and fingerprints were found on a file cabinet inside the apartment and on the victim's Toyota Celica.
Prosecutors said Sampson got into a violent fight with Sigler after he picked up the victim from Biscayne Boulevard, and Sigler refused to give him any money.
Sampson claimed during the trial that the killing was not murder because it was committed in the "heat of passion."
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