OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An ex-con found guilty in September of first-degree murder for killing an Omaha woman he had just met has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. KMTV reports that 40-year-old Jeremiah Connelly received the mandatory sentence Wednesday for killing 22-year-old Jeanna Wilcoxen, in September 2018. Wilcoxen, the mother of a 4-year old son, was a native of Council Bluffs.

Prosecutors say Connelly confessed to police that he had abducted Wilcoxen from an Omaha park near a laundromat where he’d met her a day earlier. He told police that he was angry she had backed out of plans to move in with him. He told police he forced her into his van, raped her and suffocated her. Her body was found in a ravine near Fremont, NE. Connelly carried out the killing about six weeks after he had been released from prison, where he served a term for attempted kidnapping, robbery and other crimes.

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