Updated at 3:40 p.m. on Monday to note sentences.

Jurors have sentenced a Haslet man to life in prison for murdering a Texas Woman's University student whose body was found charred and dismembered in a kiddie pool at a Grapevine park.

Tarrant County prosecutors had asked for a life sentence for Charles Dean Bryant, telling jurors that he created a "horror movie" when he killed and mutilated Jacqueline Vandagriff in 2016. Defense attorneys said Bryant deserved 20 years and that he could be rehabilitated.

Vandagriff's family and friends squeezed hands after the verdict.

Earlier on Monday, the jury took less than three hours to convict Bryant of murder and tampering with evidence after a week of testimony. The 31-year-old did not appear to show any emotion as the forewoman read the verdicts in Judge Mollee Westfall's 371st District Court.

Bryant's life sentence is for murder. He received a separate sentence of 20 years for evidence tampering.

Vandagriff's father, Rick Vandagriff, testified that since his 24-year-old daughter died, the family doesn't celebrate birthdays and holidays. Friends invite them over for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.

"We just can't celebrate it in the house and look at her chair," he said, appearing on the verge of tears.

He left the courtroom after he testified, opting not to hear the rest of the testimony, which has been gruesome.

One of Bryant's attorneys, Glynis McGinty, had argued in court that her client panicked after Vandagriff died during consensual "kinky" sex in September 2016.

Jacqueline Vandagriff and Charles Dean Bryant Jr.

McGinty said that, in his panic, Bryant went to Walmart and bought a shovel. She told jurors he was guilty only of tampering with evidence. Prosecutors called Bryant an "evil, destructive figure" who crossed paths with Vandagriff.

Bryant, who once worked as a fitness trainer and bartender, did not testify.

McGinty and Joetta Keene said in closing arguments that Bryant had no reason to kill Vandagriff.

"Where's the motive, y'all?" Keene said

She went on: "They want you to believe he's the creepola of the universe. These were two people hooking up at a bar and something went horribly wrong."

Bryant and Vandagriff were seen on video surveillance spending time together at two Denton bars the evening before her remains were found.

Tarrant County prosecutors Lucas Allen and Anna Hernandez told jurors what had happened was sinister, reminding them that even a defense witness said Vandagriff died of homicidal violence. Vandagriff had a brain injury from a blow to the head that could not have come from hitting her head inside the car during sex.

There is also no evidence Vandagriff and Bryant had sex, he said. No sperm or condom was found.

The jury of five men and seven women appeared to blink back tears as Allen told them to picture Bryant as he used a long knife to cut out Vandagriff's heart "in the dark of the morning."

He asked jurors, "if the purpose is to dispose of a body, why are you cutting out the heart?"

Investigators searched Bryant's Mitsubishi Outlander five days after Vandagriff's body was found at Acorn Woods Park near Lake Grapevine. They found a loaded, semiautomatic pistol in the back; a stun gun and zip ties.

At Bryant's home, FBI investigators found a sheathed knife, a Texas Woman's University satchel and a zip tie with hair on it.

One of Vandagriff's bones was found in Bryant's yard, near a circle on the ground where a kiddie pool used to be.

Not long before Vandagriff was murdered, Bryant was arrested on a stalking charge after police said he wouldn't stay away from his 18-year-old ex-girlfriend.

While searching Bryant's phones, police discovered hundreds of photos and videos depicting children engaged in sexual acts, according to testimony.

Vandagriff graduated from Wakeland High School in Frisco and was a licensed esthetician. She was studying nutrition at Texas Woman's University, where she transferred in 2016 from Collin College. She lived with other college students in a Denton rental home close to the bar district where she met Bryant.

Outside the courtroom, Vandagriff's uncle, Randy Vandagriff, thanked law enforcement and prosecutors as he read a statement from her parents, Rick and Sonja Vandagriff, and her sister, Genny.

"Although it had been 19 months since we lost our precious daughter, not a minute, hour or day goes by that we do not think of her: her kindness, her compassion, her enthusiasm and love of life," Randy Vandagriff read, his voice cracking. "What would Jackie say if we could talk to her? She would say, 'Remember me, remember my hopes and dreams for the future and my plans to get there.'"

The family has established an endowment at Texas Woman's University, the Jacqueline Rae Vandagriff Endowment, to fund an internship for nutrition and food science majors. It also gives them a class ring.

For more information about the endowment, visit www.twu.edu/advancement.