Texas man given life sentence 4 years after mistrial
A Central Texas man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after his first trial ended in a mistrial four years ago.
The Austin American-Statesman reports that a jury found 38-year-old Crispin Harmel guilty of capital murder Tuesday in the 2009 death of 27-year-old Jessika Kalaher in Cedar Park.
Prosecutors allege Harmel abducted Kalaher from a Walmart store and brought her to a park where he raped and strangled her.
The 2014 mistrial was declared over a dispute involving software that prosecutors used to place time stamps on Walmart surveillance video. The Williamson County district attorney at the time, Jana Duty, was briefly jailed a year later for violating a gag order in Harmel’s case.
