KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Grain Valley teenager has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing his best friend’s mother.
Jackson County Judge W. Stephen Nixon sentenced Eddie George, 18, on Friday after a jury in May convicted George of first-degree murder and assault in the stabbing death of Pamela Marquez and the slashing of her husband, Joe Marquez.
George spoke briefly before the sentencing, apologizing for his actions and saying he felt remorse.
The only sentence George could receive was life in prison without parole. Jurors had also recommended that George receive a life sentence for armed criminal action, 15 years for assaulting Joe Marquez and 30 years for a second count of armed criminal action.
That was the sentence that Nixon imposed.
Taylor Marquez, the couple’s son, is scheduled to go on trial in August for the same charges. George told investigators that Taylor suggested the plan for killing his parents.
The two high school students were almost inseparable, and George had been to the Marquez home many times, prosecutors said. On the morning of the attacks, the Marquez and George families had spent time together at the neighborhood pool.
Later that night, Joe Marquez, an assistant U.S. Attorney, was watching television when George came from behind and cut his neck and lip with a butcher knife. Marquez got the knife away from George, went upstairs and found his wife had been stabbed multiple times.
George and Taylor Marquez were arrested July 18, 2006, at a truck stop in the Denver suburb of Wheat Ridge, after someone eating at the truck stop recognized them from photos published in a newspaper.