A former Marine was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after the body of a fellow Southern California Marine’s wife was discovered at the bottom of a mine shaft, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office announced Tuesday.
Christopher Brandon Lee, 27, was found guilty Nov. 3 of one felony count of murder in the death of 19-year-old Erin Corwin. Tuesday he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole with a sentencing enhancement of "having intentionally killed the victim by means of lying in wait."
Lee confessed to strangling the 19-year-old woman and tossing her body into a desert mine shaft just outside Twentynine Palms.
Lee pleaded not guilty to killing Erin Corwin, the wife of another Marine, in June of 2014.
But a few days ago at trial, Lee said he strangled Corwin in a fit of anger and threw the body down a 140-foot-deep abandoned mine shaft near Joshua Tree National Park.
"I'm no longer scared to tell the truth. People have to know what I did," Lee testified in San Bernardino County Superior Court.
Friends told investigators that Corwin believed she was pregnant and Lee might be the father. Authorities say Lee wanted to hide the affair.
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Lee testified that he was angry because he suspected Corwin had molested his daughter.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
