AUSTIN, Texas, July 3 (UPI) -- A woman appealing a five-year sentence for her part in a 2005 Austin, Texas, killing got a new 10-year sentence instead, court records show.
Laura Ashley Hall was sentenced for tampering with evidence in helping convicted murderer Colton Pitonyak mutilate the body of Jennifer Cave after he killed her and then driving Pitonyak to Mexico, the Austin American-Statesman reported Friday.
Hall appealed her original sentence after it was thrown out by a court for prosecutorial errors, the newspaper said.
In 2007 Pitonyak was convicted and sentenced to 55 years in prison.
Hall was convicted in 2007 of tampering with evidence and hindering apprehension. The verdict was upheld but the sentence thrown out when the court learned prosecutors failed to give the defense information about a sentencing witness.
During the sentencing retrial, prosecutors presented much of the original evidence about the crime to the jury, which came back with a sentence of 10 years, the American-Statesman reported.
