COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A Cook County judge accused a former cable repairman of "diabolically" employing the tools his trade to get inside the home of unsuspecting Urszula Sakowska.
The young Polish woman was strangled, assaulted and left mostly submerged in her bathtub following a visit by "cable guy" Anthony Triplett in December 2006.
Almost seven years after the murder garnered national attention for its brutality, Triplett was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"You had all the trappings of legitimacy," Judge Kevin Michael Sheehan said Friday before the sentencing.
Triplett was working as a contractor for Comcast in 2006 when Sakowska let him in her Southwest Side home to install Internet service, prosecutors said.
Once inside, Triplett assaulted the woman, strangled her, covered her head in a "death mask" made of duct tape and then attempted to wash away the evidence by dumping her body in the bathtub.
In a last ditch attempt to evoke sympathy from the judge, Triplett stood during the sentencing hearing to claim his innocence once more.
"I didn't do it," he said, speaking through tears. "I don't hurt women, never have, never will."
But Sheehan accused the man labeled as a sociopath of spinning a "wicked web of lies" that failed with the jury and fail with the court.
Triplett's sentence came as a relief to Sakowska's fiance.
"She was the better half of me," Greg Magiera told the judge in a victim impact statement read in court Friday. "I can still see her in our house, smell her."
Triplett also is charged with killing Janice Ordidge, 39. That case is set to go to trial in September.
