Judge Sandra Peuler sentenced Travis Workman to prison for up to 15 years Monday in the death a year ago to the day of his girl-friend. The judge then told Workman she hopes he spends every day of the sentence behind bars.
"You got a deal," the 3rd District judge told Workman of the plea bargain that reduced his first-degree felony murder charge to manslaughter, a second-degree felony.Although Workman is only 20, "for all practical purposes, your life is over. You're going to spend a lot of years in prison," the judge said. "You took the life of the only person who was always there for you."
Workman pleaded guilty to shooting Julie Ann Walters, 21, in the head Aug. 18, 1996, in her Midvale apartment. Workman had been high on methamphetamines for five days and argued with Walters about returning the car he borrowed, according to investigators.
Defense attorney Matthew Nielsen said a plea bargain was in the best interest of the state and Workman. The state would have had problems proving Workman intended to kill Walters that day, Nielsen said, and witness accounts of how the killing occurred dif-fered.
The state maintained Workman and Walters argued, and Workman pulled a MAC 10 assault pistol out of his waistband, stuck it in Walters' ear, and fired. He then fled.
But Workman told Nielsen the talk was more of a discussion and razzing than an argument. He doesn't remember shooting Walters or even the gun going off.
The gun, which Workman had just acquired, was sitting on a table after being passed around the group, Nielsen said, and Workman thought he'd just struck Walters in the head with it until he saw the blood.
Nielsen said Workman was not surprised by the judge's sentence. "We kind of expected it. In this kind of case, it was about what we thought it would be," Nielsen said.
Nielsen told the judge that Workman has a borderline mental capacity, dropped out of school in the ninth grade, and suffered extreme physical and other abuse as a child.
He was exposed to drug use as a child and first received mental health treatment at age 5, Nielsen said. He started using drugs himself at age 13 "to kill the pain," left home at 15 and began associating with gangs, Nielsen said.
Workman apologized to the dozen members of Walters' family in the courtroom, telling them "this should have never happened."
The judge was not very sympathetic to the argument that Workman should have received counseling through the juvenile court system in his appearances there.
"You have nobody to blame but yourself for all of this," Peuler told him.
She told him other people have similar problems but, at some point, decide to take charge of their lives and move on instead of blaming other people.
"Instead of blaming the juvenile system, you should have taken responsibility. But instead, you turned to drugs, gangs and violent crime," Peuler told Workman.