Keok Demich was waiting in Cynthia Cole’s shower before killing her.
A handyman in Florida will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing a woman he was working for and then hiding her body in a septic tank, authorities said.
The 34-year-old handyman, Keoki Hilo Demich, was sentenced Tuesday to three consecutive life terms for the murder of 57-year-old Cynthia Cole, according to CBS 12 News.
Demich was declared by a judge to be guilty of charges including first-degree murder, burglary of an occupied dwelling with assault or battery, sexual battery with great force, grand theft and grand theft of a motor vehicle, Treasure Coast Newspapers reported.
Demich was sentenced immediately after his guilty plea in Circuit Judge Sherwood Bauer's court to life terms on each of the first three charges, which will be served consecutively, according to the outlet. He was sentenced to lesser time on the other charges.
Due to his plea, prosecutors waived their pursuit of the death penalty, CBS 12 News reported.
Demich was working as a handyman for Cole when he hid in her shower and waited for her to return home before he attacked her. He drowned her in her bathtub and sexually abused her before he submerged her in a septic tank, police said.
Security footage showed Demich walking away from Cole's car the night she went missing, Sheriff William Snyder said, according to WPTV. Demich and Cole had known each other for years, as Demich was her regular handyman, authorities said.
After hours of excavation, Cole’s body was found on March 5 in a septic tank four feet underground, officials said.
“I will never understand how you do this to someone who you call a second mother," Cole's daughter Ashley Bevensee said to Demich.
"It has broken my family and after we have already lost our father nine years ago, if I ever get married, neither of them will be there to see it," Bevensee told the court, Treasure Coast Newspapers reported.
