An ex-marine has been found guilty of dismembering a stripper he invited to a 'private party' at the apartment he shared with his girlfriend.
Sex offender Terry Speaks, 42, was convicted of second-degree murder following the death of Jaren Lockhart, 22, whose body parts washed ashore on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in June 2012.
He told the court from the witness stand on Friday that he and co-defendant Margaret Sanchez, his ex-girlfriend, last saw the victim after arranging for her to go to a party with a stranger named Nick, and dance for $500.
But the jury disagreed, instead siding with prosecutors who said he stabbed the mother-of-one in the heart at his New Orleans apartment, cut her body into pieces and then dumped them into the Mississippi Sound.
He now faces life in prison when he is sentenced while Sanchez will face trial at a later date.
Speaks, who was convicted in North Carolina of having sex with a minor in 2003, testified earlier on Friday that he felt guilty about sending Lockhart to her death, in a bid to get sympathy from the jury.
He said he did not tell investigators about Nick, or about another man he supposedly let borrow his car for $50 on the night of the killing, because he was concerned that he would be looked at as 'contributing' to Lockhart's killing.
Jaren Lockhart, 22, was killed after being invited back to sex offender Terry Speaks' New Orleans Apartment in June 2012. Her body was dismembered before the parts were dumped into the Mississippi Sound
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