A Meta man found guilty of killing his girlfriend in June 2010 in Maries County was sentenced for the crime on Tuesday.
Terry Fritz, 43, Meta, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder and 100 years for armed criminal action after being found guilty in the death of Kinga Gillibrand, 35, the mother of his child.
A jury in Texas County found him guilty following a trial in April.
The case was moved to that county on a change of venue.
The killing happened in the home the couple shared in the Meta area.
Initially, Gillibrand's body could not be found. But in November 2010, deer hunters found human remains on a property accessible by Fritz. DNA tests eventually determined the remains were Gillibrand.
The hunter who found the remains said they were covered in bloody bedding.
Dr. Russell Deidiker, a forensic pathologist in Farmington who testified at Fritz 's preliminary hearing in September 2010, said the amount of blood found in the bedroom of the home that Fritz and Gillibrand shared, along with the lack of a blood trail from that room, led him to conclude that she was killed in that room and the case was a homicide.
Investigators also found a bullet in the bedroom. Recordings of two calls between the Rolla 911 center and Fritz also were played in that September 2010 hearing. Officials made the calls after they found Gillibrand's purse in a trash bin in Rolla.
In the calls, the voice identified as Fritz told authorities he had seen Gillibrand on the morning of June 8, 2010, and that she was OK.
He also told authorities that Gillibrand intentionally had changed the pass code on her cell phone, because they had been going through some problems.
In the call, Fritz said the problems were over money and that Gillibrand owed the IRS more than $38,000.
Fritz also said he didn't think she was in any danger and that she was a free spirit. Fritz's mother, Carol Leick, testified they were on vacation the last time she talked with Gillibrand.
Leick said Gillibrand had been dealing with depression issues. Leick testified that she and her husband were concerned that, at some time, their grandson could come home and find his mother dead.