HOUSTON – On Friday, a jury sentenced 67-year-old Raymond Lazarine to 75 years in prison and fined him $10,000 after convicting him of the murder of his wife Deborah.
Lazarine made headlines when he claimed he shot her six times, including twice in the head and once in the back, while he was sleepwalking.
Sentencing
Lazarine said very little before the sentence was pronounced.
"Just that I'm sorry," Lazarine said when asked if he had anything to say.
Krysta Johns, Lazarine's stepdaughter , said the family is relieved that he will now spend decades in jail.
"It's been filled with worry of, 'What if he gets out and he's going to come after us?" Johns said. "We have just needed him to be locked away forever, and we've got that now."
What happened
Lazarine called his son in Dec. 2013 to say he'd dreamed that he killed his wife. When his son arrived to the couple's home, he found his mother dead, riddled with bullets. Lazarine told investigators that he felt like he was in a dream.
His defense attorneys used the sleepwalking defense in trial, arguing that Lazarine had a medical condition that prevented him from being able to tell the difference between dreams and reality.
Lazarine's son, Nathan, testified in court that his father had been under the care of a psychiatrist for more than a decade, and he had been prescribed psychotropic drugs which Raymond sometimes mixed with alcohol. Raymond Lazarine told police he had taken prescription medication on the day of the shooting.
Prosecutors called a sleep expert to testify and poke holes in Lazarine's story Thursday morning.