A 37-year-old man received life plus 20 years in prison Monday for the rape and murder of a woman in southwest Atlanta.
After being convicted by a Fulton County jury, Willie Lee Bryant was immediately sentenced for the November 2005 killing of 53-year-old Candiace Person. Bryant had dated Person's daughter shortly before the murder, prosecutors said.
According to the District Attorney's office, Bryant broke into the victim's Marvin Lane home and raped her before either strangling or suffocating her. He also stole her credit cards and used them to buy gas on Fulton Industrial Boulevard, prosecutors said.
When confronted with DNA evidence linking him to the crime, Bryant claimed to have had a sexual relationship with Person but denied killing her, prosecutors said. The jury convicted Bryant of murder, felony murder, rape, aggravated assault and burglary.
"This defendant murdered a woman in her own home, minding her own business, and in so doing robbed our community of someone special," District Attorney Paul Howard said.
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