FAIRPLAY, Colo.—A convicted killer pleaded guilty Friday to killing a 24-year-old graduate student while she was working on a mapping project in a remote part of the San Isabel National Forest this summer.
Robert Amos was immediately sentenced to life in prison without parole in the death of Alyssa Heberton-Morimoto. Judge Charles Barton also sentenced Amos to 60 years for a kidnapping charge and for using a deadly weapon.
Amos, convicted of murder in Kansas in 1982, had earlier asked to be executed but prosecutor Molly Chilson said Heberton-Morimoto’s family opposed the death penalty.
During the hearing, Chilson explained how Amos strangled Heberton-Morimoto after encountering her in the forest, where he had been camping, on June 26.
Heberton-Morimoto’s husband sat expressionless in the court’s front row while one woman buried her head in her hands most of the time. No family or friends spoke when given a chance by the judge.
Amos was transferred to a Colorado prison in 1982 after agreeing to testify against a co-defendant and was paroled in 2000. He has never explained why he killed Heberton-Morimoto.
She was a summer intern for the Colorado Geologic Survey, which locates and maps such hazards as sinkholes and avalanches. She had been working with a professor on the day she was killed but they had split up for a time. The professor, Karen Houck, later heard her cries for help over her radio but couldn’t find her.
When Houck went searching for Heberton-Morimoto she ran into Amos and he offered to drive her to get help. They encountered a forest ranger on the road and Houck got out.
Amos was arrested the following day after Heberton-Morimoto’s body was found.
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Information from: Rocky Mountain News,
