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BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - A woman maimed by a package bomb that also killed her teen-age son said Friday she can never put the attack behind her despite the life sentence given Friday to the man responsible.
'Everybody keeps using the word closure,' Sheila Rockwell said. 'I don't believe there will ever be closure until they close the lid on my coffin.'
Chris William Dean, 37, of Pierceton, Ind., was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Burlington to life without parole.
Dean pleaded guilty in September to killing Rockwell's son, 17-year-old Christopher Marquis, in March 1998 with a pipe bomb sent via United Parcel Service. Dean sent the bomb to avenge a CB radio deal arranged over the Internet that went bad.
Marquis was killed after he opened the package containing the bomb in the bedroom of his home. His mother, who was sitting about 5 feet away at the time of the blast, lost her kneecap and part of her right hand.
Rockwell said she would try to get on with her life. She has helped found a support group for people who have lost children.
'I'll make it,' she said. 'I'm a strong person.'
U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions III ended the four-day hearing by sentencing Dean, 37, to spend the rest of his life in jail. Defense attorneys had argued for a 30-year sentence.
Sessions found that since the his arrest, Dean had not taken responsibility for his actions, he had threatened witnesses against him and participated in an escape plot at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans that could have injured or killed prison guards.
The judge said Dean's and his lawyers' claims that his crime was the result of abuse he suffered as a child were not persuasive.
'Unfortunately for all of us, a description of the abuse Mr. Dean suffered from is ... all too common. It is not extraordinary,' Sessions said.
Sessions agreed to recommend to the federal Bureau of Prisons that Dean serve his sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.
Dean mouthed the words 'I love you' to his wife, Diane, as he was handcuffed by marshals and led away.
In addition to the life sentence, Sessions also ordered Dean to pay $50,000 in restitution to Rockwell.
Rockwell said outside the courthouse that she felt sympathy for Diane Dean, whom she had not met until this week's hearing.
The two held hands for a time Thursday afternoon and cried together after Rockwell described in graphic detail the March 1998 explosion.
'My heart goes out to Diane (Dean). She needs support, too,' Rockwell said.
Federal prosecutors initially said they would seek the death penalty against Dean, but that was avoided by his guilty plea.
Rockwell repeatedly has said she doesn't feel Dean should be executed. On Thursday she asked Sessions to sentence Dean to life without parole.
'It went the way I wanted it,' Rockwell said. 'I am very pleased with the decision.'
During the sentencing hearing, Dean's attorneys portrayed him as a loving man who was driven to make a horrible choice by the abuses he suffered as a child.
'I think he has good in his heart,' Rockwell said. But 'I can't imagine anybody snapping like that.'
