ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — An Orange County woman convicted of killing a social worker will spend 17 and a half years in prison.
The dialysis center’s manager, Aurie Burks, said Whitbeck had stepped outside to get something from his car when he was approached by Coger and her boyfriend, Kenny Chaney, who tried to rob him and then shot him.
[ Read: Manager: Victim tried to protect woman after shooting outside dialysis center ]
“The pain that this situation has put us through, the agony has broken our family apart. Big time,” said Cynthia Witbeck, the victim’s sister.
Whitbeck's death left a mother without her son, and a teenage daughter without her father.
“Everybody loved him. He was the big teddy bear that everybody loved,” said the victim’s mother Lynn Whitbeck.
Investigators said Coger and Chaney went on a crime spree, robbing two others that morning before killing Whitbeck in the parking lot. Witnesses said Coger was the driver and detectives used a GPS in the car to link her to the crimes.
[ Photos: Employee shot, killed outside dialysis center ]
“It's tough and it will always be tough. For not just me, for pretty much everybody at the clinic,” said the victim’s co-worker, Barbara Webster. “I'm not sure anybody has healed on that because this is something you'll never forget -- death, especially somebody that you were close to.”
The judge received a letter Thursday from Coger asking to delay sentencing so she could transfer custody of her children and say goodbye. The judge denied the request and ordered her to stay behind bars.
Coger will likely stay behind bars until she's at least 41 years old.
Chaney is being tried separately in this case.