Man who threatened to kill "girlfriend" in front of child then does it gets 30 to life

A Bella Vista, CA man who threatened to kill his "girlfriend" in front of her 7 year old child, then proceeded to do just that was sentenced to a prison term of 30 years to life on April 22, 2011. 49 year old Ty Rone Pitts was sentenced in Shasta County Superior Court by Judge Bradley Boeckman on April 22 for the 1st degree murder of 24 year old Randal Leigh Wert. Wert was stabbed five times in front of her 7 year old daughter Kaylee, with three of those stabbings going through Wert's body. This was not the first felony conviction Pitts had for attacking Wert - a 2008 conviction was for choking and holding a knife to Wert's throat.

According to court documents, Pitts told a sheriff's detective that he and Wert, who worked as a shift manager at a fast-food restaurant in Redding, had been arguing the night of the stabbing and that "she continued to 'needle' and 'nag' " at him.

He then pulled an 18-inch "coconut knife" from the top of the refrigerator, and he nicked her arm with it, the court documents show. Wert then told Pitts she was "going to call the cops and he was going to prison."At that point, the report said, Pitts began to stab Wert in the upper torso.

Jankowitz said during the trial's closing arguments that Pitts inflicted the final stab wound after the bleeding and terrified Wert tried to run away from him but tripped and fell down in the driveway at their residence.

Pitts then rolled Wert onto her back and, holding the knife with both hands, raised it high over his head and plunged it into her heart, Jankowitz has said.

Karen Hallenbeck of Shasta Lake, CA said her daughter's murder has caused continuing nightmares."I miss her so much...I talk to her every night before bed...I will never forgive him." Hallenbeck read a letter from her granddaughter Kaylee who asked Pitts why he killed her mother. "I wish you were here so we could play," Kaylee said in her letter.

Hallenbeck also opined that Pitts should get life without parole since "he always said he was going to kill her in front of the children." Judge Boekman said "You predicted this and you made it happen."