Jury chooses life in prison for man who killed two people from Vietnam in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2018

LAS VEGAS — A Nevada jury decided Thursday that a man should serve life in prison without the possibility of parole for breaking into a room at a Las Vegas Strip hotel-casino and killing two Vietnamese tour guides in 2018 .

Julius Damiano Deangilo Trotter, 37, was spared a death sentence by the same state court jury that found him guilty Tuesday of murder, burglary and robbery in the stabbing deaths of Sang Boi Nghia and Khoung Ba Le Nguyen at the Circus Circus hotel.

Defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen said afterward that Trotter and his legal team appreciated the jury’s decision, but that Trotter will appeal his conviction and sentence “as a normal part of the criminal justice system.”

“I think everyone is grateful that Mr. Trotter received a life sentence,” Rasmussen told The Associated Press. “The jury itself took the death penalty off the table.”

Jurors made their decision after testimony from Trotter, his family members and relatives of Nghia and Nguyen, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Trotter was seen expressing “thank you” to the jury after the verdict was read, the newspaper reported. Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt scheduled Trotter’s sentencing for Jan. 15. He is still imprisoned in Las Vegas.

Trotter told jurors Wednesday that he “wanted to have a positive impact on the people around me, in terms of my family, my children, my mother, my siblings, and so on.”

Nghia, 38, was a mother of three and ran a travel company with her husband in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Nguyen, 30, was one of her employees. Their bodies were found after they failed to show up for a group tour.

Police said hotel employees later determined the room lock had not been properly locked, and said it appeared Trotter found it unlocked while walking down the hotel hallway and trying door handles.

Trotter was arrested about a week after the murders with his girlfriend Itaska Dean following a police chase in Chino, California.

Rasmussen acknowledged that Trotter already had a criminal record; he was serving a five-year probation at the time of the murders following a misdemeanor conviction for resisting a police officer with a weapon. But the attorney said Trotter also had the support of a loving family.

Dean pleaded guilty in California to evading arrest. She was not charged with a crime in the murders of Nghia and Nguyen, and testified at Trotter’s trial.

Trotter also testified and denied killing Nghia and Nguyen. But police and prosecutors said he was found with items belonging to Nghia and Nguyen, including a purse, wallets, a cellphone, jewelry and Vietnamese cash.

The last person to be put to death in Nevada prison was Daryl Mack in April 2006, for a 1988 rape and murder in Reno. Mack asked for his lethal injection.