Victims’ families cry as killers are sentenced in Marin County

Morrison Haze Lampley (left), 24, and Lila Scott Alligood (right), 19, are sentenced at Marin County Hall of Justice for the murders of two people. Morrison Haze Lampley (left), 24, and Lila Scott Alligood (right), 19, are sentenced at Marin County Hall of Justice for the murders of two people. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 44 Caption Close Victims’ families cry as killers are sentenced in Marin County 1 / 44 Back to Gallery

A year and a half after a pair of savage murders, the families of Audrey Carey and Steve Carter remain haunted by thoughts about their loved ones’ final moments.

Were the victims scared, the families wonder, as they realized the dark motives of the three drifters who targeted them almost randomly amid a drug-fueled crime spree? Were they in pain when they died, Carey in a secluded spot in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and Carter on a remote hiking trail in Marin County?

These emotions spilled out in a Marin County courtroom Tuesday as the ringleader in the slayings, 24-year-old Morrison Haze Lampley, was sentenced to 100 years to life in prison for first-degree murder. He shot both Carey, a 23-year-old Canadian backpacker, and Carter, a 67-year-old tantric yoga instructor.

Lampley’s girlfriend, Lila Scott Alligood, 19, got 50 years to life, while a third defendant, 25-year-old Sean Michael Angold, was given 15 years to life for second-degree murder in connection with Carter’s death.

“She trusted you, you three unspeakable monsters,” said Isabelle Tremblay, Carey’s mother, in a statement read in the San Rafael courtroom by a prosecutor. “And you stole her from me.

“You are proof that evil exists,” Tremblay said.

Though the sentencing closed a case that stunned the Bay Area, the families made clear that they’ll never fully recover from the events of October 2015.

“It’s not like those people just killed Steve,” said Lokita Carter, the victim’s widow. “They killed a huge chunk of me. They killed a whole other part of another human being.”

All three defendants pleaded guilty in deals that were endorsed by the victims’ families. Angold had pleaded guilty last May, while agreeing to testify against the other two if the case went to a jury trial.

Angold said during a preliminary hearing that the violence began when the three took a handgun from an unlocked truck near Coit Tower in San Francisco. He had planned to join Lampley and Alligood as they traveled to Oregon with dreams of starting a pot farm, Angold said, but soon after finding the gun, they crossed paths with Carey near Ocean Beach.

The drifters befriended Carey, who was on her first solo backpacking trip, but planned to rob her because “she was foreign and possibly had money,” Angold said. He said the robbery went awry as they sat in thick brush in Golden Gate Park.

Carey had just thanked the three for being her friends, according to testimony, when Alligood tackled her and Lampley held the gun to her head. Angold, who had been trying to tie up Carey’s legs, heard a pop, and he said Lampley told him, “She’s dead, dude. Don’t worry about it.”

Emily Hansen, Carter’s daughter, questioned how the three could have “no remorse” after killing Carey and go on to kill her father.

Angold said that while they had initially intended only to rob Carey, they targeted Carter for death because they wanted his station wagon. Alligood was the one who chose Carter, Angold said, and they followed him as he walked his Doberman pinscher, Coco, down a popular trail northwest of Fairfax.

Lampley shot him and his dog. The three then rifled through Carter’s pockets for his keys and wallet, which had been pierced by a bullet, and used the ripped, bloody cash to buy gas and cigarettes in Point Reyes.

“Three people killed my dad, for what?” Hansen sobbed. “A little cash? A car?

“I wish they would have just given him the chance to give them his cash, his car,” she said. “He wasn’t there to walk me down the aisle at my wedding. When I have kids, they will never be able to know their grandfather. And how do I tell them how he died?”

All three were arrested two days after Carter’s death outside a Portland, Ore., soup kitchen after authorities tracked the station wagon’s GPS device.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Alligood wept as the families delivered their victim impact statements. Angold’s head hung for the entire proceeding, and he cried as well. Lampley showed no emotion, spending the majority of the sentencing staring blankly ahead. His attorney, Chief Deputy Public Defender David Brown, read a statement Lampley wrote to the court.

“I wish I could go back in time and change things,” he said. “I know I cannot ask for your forgiveness, but I hope you find peace some day.”

Brown said Lampley had lived a life of “neglect, homelessness, abuse and mental illness,” with a psychiatrist once describing him as a “feral child.”

“This is not offered as an excuse,” Brown said, “but as an attempt to understand why we’re all here.”

Angold also prepared a statement to both families that his attorney, Terrence Bennett, read on his behalf, saying, “I have no excuses to offer, but can only hope at this time to earn a small measure of forgiveness.”

Alligood read her statement herself in a shaky voice. “I would like to say I’m truly sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry for what I did, the decisions I made and the indescribable pain I’ve caused others.”

But Deputy District Attorney Leon Kousharian objected to any suggestion that Alligood was a bystander in the killings.

“She paints herself as a victim who got caught up in all this,” he said. “She was an active participant. She was the one who jumped on Ms. Carey. She was the one who selected Mr. Carter.”

“It was the drugs and the love she had for Mr. Lampley,” said her attorney, Amy Morton, outside court. “It was a very twisted type of companionship. They were both people who had holes in their hearts, and when they met each other, they got involved in heavy drugs.”

Under California’s youthful offender program, which grants earlier parole eligibility for any prisoner who was under 23 at the time of the offense, Alligood will be eligible for parole in 25 years.

“She’s culpable and she understands that, but she doesn’t understand it to the degree that our society wants her to understand it,” Morton said. “She will.”

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo