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Craigslist thrill killers Miranda and Elytte Barbour were both sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday.
The couple entered guilty pleas in Northumberland County last month.
They had been married just three weeks when they met up with their 42-year-old victim Troy LaFerrara on November 11 last year.
He had answered an ad posted on Craigslist by Miranda Barbour offering companionship for men who “hated their wives”.
The victim’s widow, Colleen, tearfully told the judge of life without her husband.
“They showed him no mercy,” she said of the keen outdoorsman. “They left him to die in an alley.”
Holly LaFerrara, the victim’s sister, said the killers were incapable of feeling guilt.
“They completely lack empathy,” she said. “They have no conscience, no remorse and no moral compass.
“They lack the most basic element of humanity. These are two fundamentally flawed people who are rotten to the core.”
Elytte Barbour read a written apology in court, though said he could not explain the “senseless crime”.
“It is not the person who I am,” he said. “It’s not the person I want to be.”
His accomplice did not address the judge.
Elytte Barbour told police he hid under a blanket in the back seat of the couple’s SUV as his wife picked up Mr LaFerrara from a shopping centre.
Miranda Barbour drove him to Sunbury.
She twice gave the signal – which involved her saying “Did you see the stars tonight?” – before finally hitting Elytte Barbour on the leg to indicate he should pounce.
He wrapped a cord around Mr LaFerrara’s neck, while she stabbed their victim 20 times.
They dumped his body in an alleyway.
Miranda Barbour at first denied knowing Mr LaFerrara, but she changed her story after it was discovered that the last telephone call received by the victim was made from her number.
Elytte Barbour admitted his part after police found surveillance footage showing him getting out of the car on the night of the killing to buy cleaning supplies.
He told police they had wanted to “kill someone together”, and had planned to kill before – but it had never worked out.
“LaFerrara was just the one with whom it worked,” he reportedly told police.
Miranda Barbour gained further notoriety in April after she claimed to have killed at least 22 other people.
She said the killings took place in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California over a period of six years, as part of her involvement in a satanic cult.
Police were unable to substantiate her claims.
Agencies/Canadajournal
