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Ogden » In court Tuesday, Johnny Maurice Bell Jr. turned to the family of the woman he stabbed to death and said: "I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart for what I've done."
But the family rejected his apology.
"I've never hated anyone like I hate Johnny Bell," said the father of 23-year-old Brittany Nichols, who was stabbed more than 16 times with five different knives.
Bell, 21, was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison for attacking his live-in girlfriend Jan. 4 because she announced she was breaking up with him.
"I made a big, stupid mistake," Bell said in 2nd District Court. He claimed he loved Nichols and "wanted to marry her and have kids with her."
The victim's father, John Nichols, spurned Bell's apology as insincere. "We didn't want to hear it," Nichols said after the hearing. "You don't do this to people you love."
Nichols had described for the court the horror of walking into the North Ogden murder scene. He and his wife, Shannon, had arrived to check on their daughter after she failed to return phone calls.
Inside, they found victim's 3-year-old daughter, Trinity, who had spent the previous night and most of that day with her dead mother after Bell fled.
"Mommy's a mess and has an owie," the girl later told her grandmother.
John Nichols said he was frustrated that the case was not deemed worthy of an aggravated-murder charge, which could have landed Bell on death row or behind bars for life without the possibility of parole.
"I don't see an upside," Nichols said, "to letting people like him out in society."
Last month, Bell pleaded guilty to first-degree felony murder. Prosecutors dismissed a charge of domestic violence in the presence of a child.
Shannon Nichols said that instead of recalling "beautiful memories" of her daughter, "I imagine [her] fear as she fought for her life."
She said she and her husband -- who are rearing Trinity -- have struggled to deal with the girl's questions about her mother. They worry about her future.
The victim's brother, Tristan Nichols, told the judge that Bell never should be paroled to spare Trinity from having to know he is free and walking the streets.
Bell has told police he "snapped" after Brittany Nichols announced their four-month relationship was over.
But Deputy Weber County Attorney Sandra Corp pointed to evidence Bell contemplated the homicide ahead of time, including text messages to a friend asking if she would support him if he "robbed a bank or killed someone."
Corp also noted that Bell had numerous opportunities to change his mind in the midst of the murder.
"When your weapons break and you go get more weapons," Corp said, "that's an intentional act."
Police found five knives in Brittany Nichol's bedroom: three kitchen knives with the blades broken off, a bread knife with the blade bent into an S-shape and a utility knife with a razor-type blade. An autopsy revealed wounds to the victim's head, face, neck, back, arm and leg.
After the slaying, Bell went to Bountiful, where he and a friend attended the comedy film, "Yes Man," while waiting for a bus to Bell's home state of California. Bell was arrested in Millard County after Utah Highway Patrol troopers intercepted the bus.
The judge called the case the "worst I've personally had" and said he "had to pretend it was fiction" to make it through the pre-sentence reports.
Judge Scott Hadley called the slaying a "monumentally stupid" act based on "such a trivial reason ... breakups are just another lump and bump to life."
"You should spend your life in prison," the judge said.
Defense attorney Roy Cole said Bell grew up in Los Angeles in a family so poor that no one could afford to attend his sentencing hearing.
Asked to explain the killing, Cole said, "Passion leads to stupid things."
Cole said Bell got "so much joy" from Brittany and her family that "he didn't want to lose them."
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