Her pleas for help and chilling screams were recorded and used as evidence in Burris' trial, which ended in May with a guilty verdict.
In 1994, Burris received a $9 million contract to build Mercer County Waterfront Park for the Trenton Thunder baseball team. He arrived in the courtroom under armed guard yesterday, supported on crutches because of a hip injury and wearing an orange jail jumpsuit over a gray t-shirt.
Burris has been incarcerated since his arrest immediately after the shooting, serving 808 days that will count toward completing his sentence. He answered only ``no, sir'' in a low voice when the judge asked if he had anything to say.
Despite the sentence - which makes Burris 99 years old before he is eligible for parole - Selvaggio's family and friends who gathered in the courtroom later said they felt no relief.
''It just puts Don in a place where he belongs, it doesn't bring my sister back,'' said the victim's brother David Selvaggio. ``You go through this and you think that every step will lead to closure, but it doesn't.''
So brutal was the killing, that Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Michael Connor said, he felt compelled to impose New Jersey's ``no early release act'' into the 65-year term so that Burris must serve 85 percent of the time before he may be paroled. The minimum sentence Connor could have given Burris was 30 years. The maximum was life in prison.
''The unarmed victim was hunted down like an animal,'' Connor said. ``She was pursued into a weeded area where she eventually died.''
