A Carson City jury sentenced David Winfield Mitchell to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Wednesday morning for the 1982 murder of Sheila Jo Harris. The jury heard statements from Harris' family and a woman victimized by Mitchell in 1979 before deciding on his sentence.
The sentence was announced just 24 hours after the jury convicted Mitchell of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon.
Harris had been raped with her hands bound behind her back, beaten with a board that left splinters throughout her Carson City apartment and on her body and strangled with what appeared to be an electrical cord that had been wrapped twice around her neck. The cord and board have never been recovered.
