Jesce Richt sentenced to life for murder of Jessica Griffin

Lina Portman4 weeks ago

3 3 minutes read

This article includes dialogue from a domestic violence incident.

Christy Stoll shook, overcome with grief, as she listened to a five-minute recording of a fight between her older sister and the man convicted of her murder.

Stoll flinched at the sound of every slap and punch as Jesce Richt threatened to kill Jessica Griffin and her family. The packed courtroom gasped at the violent barrage of frenzied threats and obscenities.

“F—— b———, shut up,” Richt shouted in the recording that prosecutor Jeff Hoppe played in court.

Hoppe said the recording alone was enough for a jury to put the defendant away for life. A day earlier, the jury found Richt guilty of first-degree murder for killing Griffin on April 18, 2023. Their task now was to determine his sentence.

Hoppe presented a detailed case with evidence not admitted in the criminal trial to argue for the maximum prison sentence.

“I'm going to put you in the damn desert right now, f—— now,” Richt shouts, repeating a threat he has often made to kill Griffin and stuff her in a pipe in the desert where she would never be found. “I'm going to break your face. Your family is dead.”

The violent fight was one of several between Griffin and Richt over the course of 20 years of an on-and-off relationship, police records show. Griffin had recorded calls and conversations in the weeks before his murder to use as evidence for protection orders.

It took the jury less than two hours to find Richt guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday and an hour to sentence him Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Richt, 41, is now back in Washoe County Jail until at least August, when he will be sentenced on enhanced weapons charges. Guns were found in his Las Vegas home during a massive manhunt after he fled the scene of the murder. Having previously been convicted of domestic violence, Richt was not allowed to possess weapons.

Hoppe described a furious man after Griffin decided to end their relationship. He recapped the elaborate plan that Richt was to drive to Reno, buy black clothes and rent two cars to hide his trail before parking around the corner from Griffin's mother's house.

When Griffin entered the garage, Richt came up the driveway and shot him seven times. Home security camera footage shows him fleeing.

New evidence presented at Jesce Richt sentencing

Richt's violent past was detailed in arguments for his life sentence. Also known as Paul Watterson, Richt faced several domestic violence charges for abusing Griffin and other women.

In a July 4, 2006, police report, witnesses said Richt attacked Griffin.

In April 2022, an arrest warrant was issued after Griffin's children called 911 to report that Richt had punched her in the face multiple times for refusing to be intimate.

Griffin's mother, Greer, told the jury that Richt beat her daughter and left her tied up in a closet for hours.

Richt's own mother filed a temporary protective order against him in 2005 for threatening to kill her because she refused to pay his utility bill.

Former girlfriends have filed protection orders with similar stories of abuse. They reported being strangled and pinned when they tried to leave.

Family speaks about impact of Jessica Griffin's death

Greer Griffin said her daughter was so afraid Richt would kill her that she slept in her mother's bed every night in the weeks before he was killed.

A statement from Griffin's teenage son, fathered by Richt, was read in court.

“This has been the worst time of my life,” the statement said. “I don’t want to be there because I don’t want to have to face him anymore. Because of you, I never had a father and now I no longer have a mother.

Michael Di Loreto, Griffin's ex-husband and father of their 11-year-old daughter, read a statement.

“Two days before his 10^th birthday, his mother was murdered,” Di Loreto said. “The opportunity to have a normal childhood was stolen from my daughter. »

John Griffin said he knew Richt was violent toward his sister, but never knew how serious it was. He said he only learned after her death that she had stayed with Richt toward the end of their relationship because Richt had threatened to kill her family if she left.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her,” he said.

Stoll told the jury about his nephew's call minutes after Griffin was shot.

“Hurry up. Please come here,” the boy shouted after seeing his dead mother.

Stoll said Griffin, just 18 months older, was her lifelong best friend.

“I lost any sense of normalcy,” Stoll told the jury.

Lina Portman

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