Surveillance video from the restaurant parking lot showed Young as she entered the White Castle and returned to her car with food. Seconds later, Spates ran across the lot to the driver’s side door and opened fire. An autopsy indicated Young was looking directly at Spates as she was shot, prosecutors said.

“He looked her in the face and brutally shot her 11 times,” Assistant Circuit Attorney Jennifer Szczucinski said in court.

Police linked Moss to the killing via witnesses and surveillance tapes that spotted a pickup truck similar to his near Young, both before and after the murder. Prosecutors said there also were witnesses to the payouts — $7,500 to Spates and the rest to White.

After the money was split, Spates reportedly told one of those witnesses it was “what you get for putting in the work,” explaining further that he “hit the girl at the White Castle.”

Spates had a prior drug conviction, and White had been convicted of a series of drug and gun crimes. Moss had a history of assault charges. Each declined to speak at the sentencing hearing.

Young was the youngest of her siblings and mother of a teenage daughter. She worked at a nursing home in Chesterfield.