YNOT – The Mexican citizen convicted in the November 2007 murder of internet porn model Zoey Zane was sentenced March 31 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.Israel Mireles, 26, in February failed to convince an El Dorado, Kans., jury Zane — who in real life was Kansas college student Emily Sander, 18 — died during a drug deal gone bad. After only four days of testimony, jury members deliberated little more than an hour before convicting Mireles of rape, sodomy and capital murder.
As a condition of the extradition agreement that returned Mireles from Mexico to the U.S. to stand trial, he was ineligible for the death penalty.
According to testimony, Mireles fled to Mexico after murdering Sander. During his trial, Mireles claimed a mystery man with whom he argued about drugs killed Sander after Mireles walked out on the deal. When he returned to the motel room where he had left Sander alone with the other man, after allegedly taking a drive “to cool down,” he discovered Sander’s mutilated body and the murder weapon.
Mireles told the court he panicked and dumped Sander’s body alongside a road about 50 miles from the murder scene, then tossed the bloody knife and Sander’s clothes in a trash bin at his pregnant girlfriend’s grandmother’s house. He and his girlfriend immediately departed for Mexico.
Sander’s nude, stabbed, strangled and beaten body was found six days later. Mireles was arrested in Mexico the following month.
At his March 31 sentencing, Mireles told the court, “I have nothing to say.”
Sander’s family did, however.
“What you did was more like a savage animal, rather than a human being,” Clem Sander, Emily’s grandfather, told the packed courtroom.
Brent Blaine, Emily Sander’s uncle, addressed Mireles directly, saying, “Her will was not broken that night, but you are still a pathetic little man.”
