ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A man was sentenced to life in prison without eligibility for parole for the 2016 murder of a St. Louis County nurse.
Kevin Fields was sentenced Thursday, a few weeks after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, robbery and domestic assault for stabbing Tami Allen to death.
Allen was found stabbed in her living room around midnight on Feb. 5, 2016.
The Moline Acres Police Department was asked to perform a welfare check at a home on Wendell Drive. Police say a man claiming to be the victim's boyfriend told police she was texting him that somebody was in the home and she couldn't talk.
Police say someone forced their way through the back door of the home, and they found the woman in the living room suffering from multiple stab wounds. Allen was taken to a nearby hospital where she later died.
During its investigation, the St. Louis County Police Department found DNA evidence linking Fields to the crime.
Judge Brian May addressed the victim's family after overseeing the trial and sentencing. He said the case was "one of the most upsetting cases I've ever had to deal with."
Allen was a hospice nurse. She was survived by two now-teenage children.
"She was a very caring, special, lovely person," one of her uncles said during sentencing. "No one or nothing can ever replace her."
At the time of the killing, police said they believed it was the first homicide in that city in at least ten years.
