Jared Chance enters the courtroom for his sentencing for the killing of Ashley Young, inset. Photos / AP, supplied
Jared Chance enters the courtroom for his sentencing for the killing of Ashley Young, inset. Photos / AP, supplied
WARNING: Disturbing content
A Michigan man convicted of killing and dismembering a woman has been sentenced to at least 100 years in prison after a judge called his actions "reprehensible and heinous."
Judge Mark Trusock called the case "extremely disturbing" before announcing the punishment for 30-year-old Jared Chance, which included 100 years to 200 years for the second-degree murder of Ashley Young, 31, without the eligibility of parole until he's 130 years old.
"You sir, in my mind are a very evil individual. You are clearly a monster without any conscious whatsoever… and you should never be allowed free," Trusock said.
Kristine Young, mother of Ashley Young, reacts at the sentencing of Jared Chance. Photo / AP
"This is without question the worst case that I have ever been involved in," Trusock said, mentioning the more than 200 homicide and murder cases he's presided over.
"What you did and what I saw in photographs was reprehensible and heinous.
"You seemed at times to derive pleasure from the testimony that was best described as gruesome."
Kristine Young brought her daughter Ashley's cremated remains to court on Thursday (US time) and told Chance: "I want to rip you limb from limb."
"You had no right to take her from me," Kristine Young, yelled. "Jared Chance I hate you. I want to rip you from limb from limb and discard you, just like you did to Ashley."
Kristine Young angrily shouted at Jared Chance as he looked down.
"You threw her out like trash and she was your friend. Why?" she asked.
"When I was 18, I was told I would never have children by a doctor. I thank God he gave me the gift of Ashley, even though it was for a very short period of time, God gave me that gift. You had no right to take her from me! to take her from her family!" Kristine Young yelled, staring directly at Chance.
Kristine Young said she now cries every day and constantly replays in her head her last conversation with Ashley and listens to a voicemail from her daughter to hear her voice and laugh.
The remains of Ashley Young were found in the basement of Chance's apartment. Photo / Supplied
Dana Nelson, step mother of Ashley Young, reacts at the sentencing of Jared Chance. Photo / AP
With her hand on the box of her daughter's cremated remains, Kristine Young said: "This is what's left of my daughter. If I want a hug, I have to hug a box and close my eyes and pretend that she is hugging me back because you chose to murder her."
Ashley Young's stepmother, Dana Nelson, focused most of her account on the unanswered questions from the murder — a motive, and Ashley Young's missing remains.
Chance appears for his trial at the Kent County Courthouse in Grand Rapids. Photo / AP
"(I hope) no one has to hear the sound that I heard coming from Ashley's mum the day she first, the first time she saw and was able to be with her daughter after she was murdered. After she was murdered. She only had her daughter's torso and limbs," she said, sobbing. "There was nothing I could do to comfort or console or take it away of fix it for her. Nothing."
"Give her that peace. Tell her what happened that early morning of November 29 when Ashley's life ended, and where the rest of her daughter Ashley is. Do the right thing today."
Young's best friend, Samantha Hunt said: "You are a monster, a coward. Ashley deserved better than this. I'll spend the rest of my life hating you."
Chance had turned down a plea deal that would have made him eligible for parole after 31 years at age 61. Instead, he chose to go to trial last month.
The sentence exceeded state guidelines. But Judge Trusock says the guidelines don't account for the "level of brutality" in Young's death.
Kristine Young, mother of Ashley Young, gestures to a box containing her daughter's ashes. Photo / AP
Young was last seen alive on November 29 with Chance, visiting a hookah lounge and bar in Eastown.
Her torso was found in a tarpaulin in December in the basement of Chance's Grand Rapids rental home by a neighbour. Other remains of the 31-year-old woman haven't been found.
Forensic technicians testified that they found a box of body parts on the stairwell of the apartment building and human tissue and blood throughout Chance's apartment. They also found a bloody reciprocating saw in Chance's parents' home in Holland, which Chance visited after Young's disappearance.
Chance's parents, James and Barbara Chance are both charged with perjury and being an accessory after the fact in the mutilation and disinterment of a dead body. Their trials are scheduled for January 6.
