FORT WORTH, Texas — A White Settlement man was sentenced to life without parole Tuesday for the murder of his girlfriend, whose remains are still missing.
Kasey Ray Nutter, 28, was last seen in December 2015, one month after she filed an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge against her boyfriend, 50-year-old Kevin Wayne Powell, the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office said in a statement Wednesday.
Prosecutors said it was a tip from Powell's own family that led them to answers after Nutter was reported missing by her grandmother in April 2016.
During the trial, a relative who tipped off police during the investigation took the stand. The family member told the jury that Powell confessed that he had murdered Nutter and used multiple power saws to cut her body into small pieces. Powell then allegedly used chemicals to dispose of the pieces.
During the investigation, prosecutors said, investigators discovered that Powell had repainted a bedroom in his home and used mounted furniture to cover part of the wall. Nutter's DNA was found on the floors and baseboards inside the room.
Prosecutors said he also sold saws to a pawn shop.
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, during opening statements of the trial, prosecutor Allenna Bangs said Powell attempted to strangle Nutter with a wire hanger and suffocate her with a plastic bag in November 2015. He then allegedly tried to drown her in a shower.
That attack, Bangs said, led Nutter to file charges against Powell, who killed her in retaliation.
While the defense attorney argued Nutter could still be alive and her history of mental illness and drug use opened the door to more suspects, the jury found Powell guilty of murder.
In a statement released Wednesday, the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office said it took the jury just over an hour to sentence Powell to life without parole.
