GREENVILLE - A jury found Brandon Woodruff guilty of the capital murder of his parents on Friday, and Judge Richard Beacom sentenced him to life in prison without parole.
Woodruff, who stood at the defense table with members of his legal team to hear the verdict and the sentence, closed his eyes and shook his head.
Charla Woodruff, his sister, read a victim impact statement from the witness stand, describing the pain of holidays without her slain parents, and a daughter who would never know her grandparents.
"May God forgive you," she said to Woodruff, 22.
Heather Huckabee, Woodruff's cousin, read a statement in court on behalf of her mother, Linda Matthews, who testified in the trial.
Huckabee described the effects of the murders on the whole family, including panic attacks and anxiety triggered by ruined memories.
An accident or almost anything would have been better than the way Woodruff's parents died, she said.
Dennis and Norma Woodruff were shot and stabbed to death in the Hunt County mobile home into which they were moving after raising Brandon and Charla in Heath.
A family friend found their bodies on Oct. 18, 2005, after relatives were unable to reach them by phone. According to the prosecution, they were killed the evening of Oct. 16, 2005.
Police arrested Woodruff on Oct. 24, 2005, and he has been in the Hunt County Jail since then.
A series of hearings delayed the trial after Beacom ruled that county prosecutors had violated Woodruff's rights by taping his jailhouse phone calls.
The district attorney's office was recused from the case, and the state attorney general's office supplied special prosecutors Adrienne McFarland and Ralph Guerrero.
Woodruff looked down at the defense table during the victim impact statements.
A cordon of deputies escorted him out of the courtroom in handcuffs.
"I'll always love you," his grandmother Bonnie Woodruff told him outside the courtroom. "I'll always be there for you."
"I'm not guilty," Woodruff said as he was led to an elevator. "There'll be an appeal."
"We have of course filed a notice of appeal, and the appellate courts will take it from there," defense attorney Katherine Ferguson said in the hallway after court adjourned.
"We are disappointed in the outcome, but we respect the jury's verdict," she said. "We thank them for their service and for the fact that they spent five hours diligently reviewing the evidence and going through it."
Given the verdict, the sentence was automatic.
The charge was a single count of capital murder because the two slayings were committed in a single criminal event.
Had the jury acquitted Woodruff, double jeopardy would have applied and he would have gone free without fear of further prosecution, according to McFarland, one of the prosecutors.
"We are pleased with the verdict," McFarland said.
