Jury Doubles Convicted Woman's Prison Sentence

A week-long sentencing retrial for a woman previously convicted of tampering with evidence and hindering apprehension in a 2005 murder case did not end the way she expected. The jury slapped 26 year old Laura Hall with the maximum sentence possible under the law: 10 years in prison for the tampering with evidence charge, and one year for hindering apprehension.

In 2007, Hall was found guilty of mutilating the body of Jennifer Cave, after Colton Pitonyak shot and killed the 21 year old woman. On a separate charge, the jury also found that she helped Pitonyak run away to Mexico, avoiding a call to authorities after seeing Cave's lifeless body on the bathroom floor of his apartment. Six days later, police caught up with the couple across the border.

But because prosecutors in the trial withheld evidence, an appellate court threw out the five year sentence originally given to Hall. Her conviction, however, stuck.

Monday, a jury selection process, which started with 120 people on the panel, weeded the pool down to nine men and three woman. Prosecutors, led by Travis County Assistant District Attorney Allison Wetzel, began presenting witnesses on Tuesday, including some of Hall's former cell mates.

"She [Cave] was just a dancer. That bitch deserved to die," said one of Hall's former cell mates recalling what Hall said about Cave in a conversation. Later in the week, Wetzel told the jury the witness had nothing to gain from testifying.

The state presented brand new evidence in court also - 19 phone calls Hall made from jail following her first sentence. The calls allowed the jury to hear Hall's frustration from being in jail, threats she made on Cave's family and her own parents, and, according to the state, the excitement she felt over violence. In one call to an unidentified man in 2008, Hall became fascinated about a story of a man jumping from a ledge at a mall several stories high. The unidentified man told Hall how the person almost landed on children which could have killed them. Hall became fascinated by the story, heard in her voice.

Defense attorney Joe James Sawyer began calling witnesses to the stand late Thursday, shortly after prosecutors rested their case. Loren Hall, Laura's father, talked about his daughter and maintained her innocence. During cross examination, Wetzel became frustrated with him for pronouncing his personal beliefs over his daughter's innocence. Wetzel firmly argued with him this trial is about punishment, not guilt or innocence.

The defense's tactic failed to work, however. Sawyer's focus remained on Colton Pitonyak, hoping the jury would find him responsible for the entire murder and mutilation. Sawyer continued to claim Pitonyak had control over Hall and that she was scared for her life. That's the reason, he says, she drove him to Mexico.

"You tell me if you believe for one second he ever listened to anyone tell him anything to do; that he didn't exist as the center of his universe and use others," Sawyer said in closing statements.

A DNA lab technician told the jury Hall's DNA can be excluded from some of the tools used in the mutilation of Cave. However, Hall's DNA was found on the pistol believed to have been the murder weapon, as well as several other objects in the apartment. That, said the state, confirms Laura Hall was in the apartment the morning of Cave's murder August 17, 2005, and that she participated in the mutilation.

"Make no mistake, we want it all," said prosecutor Christopher Baugh, an Assistant District Attorney.

For the Cave family, who watched the trial without speaking to the media, the sentence is a bittersweet victory. "How can you be satisfied when your child is gone?" asked Sharon Sedwick, Cave's mother. "There is no satisfaction. Do I feel like justice has been done, do I feel like justice has worked? Yes."

This was the Sedwicks third trial. They were in the courtroom during Pitonyak's trial and when the jury handed him a 55 year sentence for their daughter's murder. They were also in the courtroom during Hall's first trial. Asked if a sentencing retrial made him angry, Jim Sedwick, Cave's stepfather, said no.

"The system worked as it's supposed to work," he said. "Laura Hall, through the system, was entitled a new trial. The system worked as it was supposed to have worked."

The Hall family left the courtroom shortly after the verdict was read. In the hall, Loren told reporters he felt like his daughter did not receive a fair shake in the courtroom and stands by Laura. Hall's attorneys could not be reached for comment. An appeal is planned.

Hall's sentences will run concurrently. She also must pay $14,000 in fines - $10,000 on the charge of tampering with evidence and $4,000 for hindering apprehension.