Posted on August 24, 2016

Man Sentenced in Rape, Murder of 100-Year-Old Woman

Kristine Guerra, Washington Post, August 20, 2016

If 37-year-old Kasey Nesbitt is lucky, he’ll be out of prison at 86.

By then, he’ll still be younger than the Kansas woman he raped in 2014.

Nesbitt, who’s identified in court records as a criminal street gang member, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for the rape and murder of 100-year-old Martha Schell.

Kasey Nesbitt

Kasey Nesbitt

He’ll be eligible for parole in 23 years, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett told the Wichita Eagle. If granted parole, he’ll still serve another 26 1/2 years, which is the second portion of his sentence.

Nesbitt’s punishment comes nearly two years after Schell died. An autopsy revealed that she died of a blood clot that traveled to her lungs, the Wichita Eagle reported. Schell’s death, according to court records obtained by The Washington Post, was caused by complications from injuries she suffered in the sexual assault.

Police said Nesbitt broke into the elderly woman’s Wichita home in September 2014. According to an affidavit, Schell went to her next-door neighbor’s home that morning, wearing only a towel to cover her breasts.

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Schell was later taken to a local hospital. Confused about what happened, she told the detective that a man broke into her home and tried to rape her, the affidavit said. She remembered being thrown around and getting hit on the back of her head behind her ear, she told the officer.

A test showed that Schell was indeed raped, as shown by significant injuries to her vaginal area, according to the affidavit.

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Before her death, Schell was living a quiet and independent life in her home, using a walker to help her move around, Bennett told jurors last month, according to the Wichita Eagle. But the attack left her with a broken vertebrae and other injuries.

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