POSTED: 4:31 pm CST January 15, 2010
UPDATED: 5:58 pm CST January 15, 2010
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- The family of a woman who was stabbed 106 times by her boyfriend learned the price the man will have to pay in court on Friday.
With a coat draped over his head to hide his face, Justin Bennett walked into an Independence courtroom to face his fate. In November, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and Friday the judge sentenced him to the harshest punishment possible -- life in prison without parole.
"This is an extremely dangerous defendant," said Jackson County prosecutor Jim Kanatzer. "By his actions he is someone who would brutally attack someone and stab them over 106 times and it's terribly satisfying to me that this individual will never be coming back to society."
During a domestic dispute in September 2008, Bennett stabbed Keona Johnson to death while her three children were in the next room, court records showed. The incident happened in the victim's home near 23rd Street and Noland Road in Independence.
Court records said that Bennett took off with the couple's 4-month-old son, but police later found the child unharmed and arrested Bennett. Bennett claimed he stabbed the victim in self defense.
"I don't think you can have a motive in a case like this, there's no justifiable motive for anyone ever brutally attacking someone the way he chose to attack this poor woman," Kanatzer said. "It was a domestic case. They were in a strange relationship and that's really all I can shine on it."
The judge also gave Bennett a second life sentence in the case for an armed criminal action charge.
The victim's family declined to comment about the sentencing.
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