Warner Robins man sentenced to life without parole for plotting wife's murder
Shonti Tager
Story Created:
Aug 29, 2012 at 6:52 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Aug 29, 2012 at 6:52 PM EDT
A Warner Robins man, who was found guilty of hiring two men to kill his wife, was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Fifty-six-year-old James "Eddy" Clements showed no emotion as Houston County Judge Edward Lukemire sentenced Clements, for what Lukemire called, calculated, cold-blooded acts.
Also sentenced were Clements confessed co-conspirators 54-year-old Robert Sybert and his son 30-year-old Richard Sybert. Both Syberts took plea deals from prosecutors in exchange for their testimony against Clements.
Richard Sybert, the confessed gunman, avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to 14 different counts, but will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Robert Sybert, who prosecutors say drove the getaway car and provided the sawed off .22 caliber rifle used to shoot Clements wife, was given 20 years for attempted murder and another 10 years for use of a firearm to commit murder, for a total of 30 years.
Early in the hearing Clements' defense attorney Laura Hogue asked Jude Lukemire to give Clements hope by giving him a chance at parole, but Houston County District Attorney George Hartwig countered that hope was exactly what Clements took away from his wife when he plotted her murder.
Forty-seven-year-old Joni Clements, a clinical nurse for the 78th Medical Operations Squadron at Robins Air Force Base, was shot several times in February, 2011, at the couple’s home on Westwood Drive in Warner Robins.
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