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By DAVID SOMMER
The Tampa Tribune
NEW PORT RICHEY - For the third day in a row, Adrian DeGrandchamp wept during the first-degree murder trial of the man who killed her mother.
This time, however, the tears were tears of joy.
Jurors deliberated just less than two hours Thursday before convicting Frederick John Morgan for the May 2005 slaying of DeGrandchamp’s mother, Lynn Marie Vincent.
“I’m just glad to finally get justice for my mom,” DeGrandchamp said after Circuit Judge William R. Webb sentenced Morgan, 46, to life in prison. “Now she can rest in peace.”
Vincent, a former executive assistant with Haliburton Corp. who was training to become a medical assistant, had her throat slashed and was stabbed in at least 23 places during what Morgan told detectives was a robbery.
Morgan said another man did the stabbing, but it did not matter under the law. The eight women and four men on the jury were told they could convict Morgan of first-degree murder if they believed he did it or helped someone else kill Vincent.
“They could base it just on his confession,” defense attorney Keith Hammond said afterward.
In closing arguments Thursday, Hammond reminded jurors that evidence showed Vincent had quarreled with her boyfriend and a neighbor the night before she was slain, and that either of those people had more of a motive than Morgan did to do her harm.
The prosecution’s case hinged on a bloody, left-handed garden glove.
Vincent was killed inside the bedroom of her single-wide trailer at the Walden Pond Mobile Home Park. The glove, the blood on which matched Morgan’s DNA, was found under Vincent’s left elbow as she lay on a bed soaked with her blood.
Assistant State Attorney Michael Halkitis told jurors that Morgan cut himself during the stabbing frenzy and then left the glove behind. Morgan told detectives that his gloved hand got in the way when his robbery accomplice suddenly attacked Vincent.
No one else has been charged in connection with the murder, and police said they consider the case closed.
Reporter David Sommer can be reached at (727) 815-1087 or dsommer@tampatrib.com.
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