BEAUMONT, Texas — A Texas appeals court has denied the appeal of a Sabine Pass woman who killed her 81-year-old father in 2019.
Texas' Ninth Court of Appeals denied the appeal of Kelli Sartin, 57, who was convicted in 2021 of murdering her father, Charles Douglas Sartin, 81, in 2019 in Sabine Pass.
Charles Sartin was the longtime owner of Sartin's Seafood.
She had appealed her conviction saying the trial court admitted evidence it should not have allowed, the prosecutor engaged in “improper argument” and that her attorney had “failed to provide her with effective assistance.”
The appeals court denied all of her points of appeal and upheld her conviction in a ruling released on Wednesday, October 18, 2023.
Sartin told police that her father had committed suicide by “hitting his head and body with his fists, a metal spatula, and a wooden rolling pin" according to court documents.
She later changed her story in a recorded statement to detectives claiming she killed her father self-defense when the 81-year-old came at her with a knife.
A Jefferson County jury in 2021 sentenced Kelli Sartin to 81 years in prison.
Sartin is not eligible for parole until after July 2049 according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records.
This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.
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