ST. GEORGE — An inmate already serving a life sentence for two murders in Oconee County has been sentenced to death for killing a fellow prisoner while behind bars.

Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein handed down the death sentence to 41-year-old Kenneth Justus on Tuesday.

Justus had pleaded guilty to killing 22-year-old Justin Bregenzer in his cell at the Lieber Correctional Institution. The Charleston Post and Courier reported that during an earlier sentencing hearing, Justus declined to give a public statement but did pass a hand-written note to Goodstein in which he said the families of his victims deserve closure.

"I truly believe this punishment is the only just punishment for the crime I've committed," he wrote.

Justus was serving life without the possibility of parole when he attacked Bregenzer with a shank, stabbing him 11 times. Officials have not disclosed a reason for the murder but believe it may have been tied to money.

The sentencing paves the way for what may be the final chapter in the former Mountain Rest man's criminal story that began a decade ago.

Justus was sent to Lieber after confessing to murdering two convenience store workers during the armed robbery of "mom-and-pop" stores in Oconee County about a year apart in the late 1990s. The robberies were part of a crime spree that also landed two other Oconee residents in jail.

Justus was convicted in connection with the shooting death of Walhalla convenience store owner Randall Eades in January 1997 and the death, one year later of Ingeburg “Kitty” Smith of Salem at her store. She was shot to death during a Sunday night holdup.

A witness was able to provide police with enough information for a composite sketch of one of the suspects in the robbery and murder. Posters were placed throughout Upstate South Carolina, and Oconee County authorities “received probably 100 calls” from people offering information, Sheriff James Singleton told The Morris New Service at the time.

Acting on a tip, South Carolina authorities broadcast a lookout for the late-model Cadillac with Texas license plates Justus was believed to be driving. An Athens-Clarke police officer spotted it at the Best Western Inn motel.

After waiting through the morning for other motel guests to check out or leave, officers from the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, the Oconee County Sheriff's Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation descended on Room 136.

Justus and a companion were taken into custody but not before Justus shot and seriously injured himself.

His companion, 36-year-old Betty Sue Delfino Burrier of Walhalla, was jailed in the Clarke County Jail after being questioned by an investigator from the Oconee County Sheriff's Department about the convenience store shooting. She was eventually charged in connection with the crime.

Burrier was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison for accessory and armed robbery charges.

After the fact

In December 1999, the case was again in the news as Lorne Clark Taylor of Westminster was placed on probation for failing to report the shooting death of the Salem storeowner.

Taylor was placed on probation for two years and ordered to perform 20 hours of community service.

Prosecutors said Taylor knew about the robbery and failed to report it.

Yet another court case came out of the incident when Henry Dale McCall of Mountain Rest, who spent 18 months in jail in connection with Eades' January 1997 murder, sued the Oconee County Sheriff's Department.

McCall sought unspecified damages, claiming his imprisonment was a violation of his civil and constitutional rights.

McCall was arrested in March 1997 and held in the county detention center until September 1998, when he was released on bond. Charges against him were dismissed in October after authorities charged Justus with the slaying.

The Associated Press, Schuyler Kropf of The Post and Courier, Charleston, and news reports from Morris News Service and the Augusta Chronicle contributed to this story.