May 8, 2025 6:50 a.m.

The News Review is reporting:

Savino David DeSantiago received two consecutive life sentences with no parole from Judge Ann Marie Simmons in Douglas County Circuit Court on Tuesday morning.

Minutes earlier, Simmons convicted the 39-year-old on all counts for the March 2020 shooting deaths of 31-year-old Benny Alexander Stallings, and 24-year-old Nicholas David Lehman-Helmke, who lived next door to DeSantiago’s home in Winston at the time of the crime.

The trial occurred over four non-consecutive weeks in March and April, after the defense waived its right to a jury and instead allowed Simmons to be the sole finder of fact. Much of the defense’s case was spent on DeSantiago’s mental capacity, with two psychologists testifying about his troubled childhood, intellectual impairment and lack of development which combined to prevent him from being able to regulate his impulses.

The state countered with its own psychologist, and on Tuesday morning Simmons almost immediately announced her findings that DeSantiago did not lack the capacity to regulate his actions. Simmons also issued a written opinion describing how she arrived at the conclusion that DeSantiago’s borderline intellectual functioning, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, alcohol dependence and intoxication were proven, but that they did not meet the legal standard of a qualifying mental disorder.

Douglas County District Attorney Rick Wesenberg asked the court for two consecutive sentences of life without the possibility of parole, which he eventually got.

Get the complete story from reporter Patrick Moore in Thursdays edition of The News Review.