JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) _ A judge has sentenced a convicted sex offender to life in prison without parole plus 70 years for the rape and killing of a 17-year-old southern Indiana woman.
Fifty-year-old Richard Carley Hooten of Clarksville was sentenced Monday in Clark Circuit Court in Jeffersonville. He pleaded guilty last month to rape, murder and other charges stemming from the March 2013 slaying of Tara Rose Willenborg.
The woman's boyfriend discovered her unclothed, battered body in the Clarksville apartment they shared. He and Willenborg had sold alcohol to Hooten, an occasional neighbor, before the slaying.
The News and Tribune and WDRB-TV report Hooten faced the possibility of the death penalty until striking a plea agreement in which he agreed to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.
