Murderer: 'What I did, even in my eyes, was heinous'

EUGENE, Ore. - Cindy Archibald brought a photograph of her daugher Allyson with her to court with her Thursday in one hand.

"That was Allyson a few days before she died," she said.

In the other hand, she carried her daughter's urn.

"This is Allyson now. What I have left of her," the grieving mother told the court. "I just want to know why. That's not love."

She never got her answer: in 10 minutes of begging and pleading with the court, the man convicted of beating Allyson Archibald to death with his bare hands on a Springfield sidewalk in November 2010 never could explain his actions.

"I'm so sorry the pain I caused you all. I don't like to hurt people," Robert Boyd, now 29, told the court as he trembled and shook, sometimes crying, sometimes hyperventilating. "I don't know what the hell happened. What I did, even in my eyes, was heinous."

Boyd faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison. Prosecutor Steven Morgan asked the court for 45 years minimum, which the defense attorney called extreme.

There was an audible gasp in courtroom when Judge Lauren Holland pronounced her judgment: life in prison.

He will have the possibility of parole after 45 years.

"No family should have to go through what they are going through, No parent should have to go through what those parents are going through," the judge told Boyd. "The court finds that you are incredibly dangerous and violent and you never took responsibility."

Watch KVAL 13 (8) TV News @ 11 and again Tuesday for more on this story