DeChant will get no parole

Bill Gang

Monday, Dec. 21, 1998 | 11:17 a.m.

Amy DeChant already knew she was being sent to prison for two life sentences for killing her wealthy bookmaker boyfriend. What she didn't know was whether the terms would be with or without the possibility of parole.

District Judge John McGroarty on Friday decided she would have no chance for parole and also would have to serve a 12-year term for robbing 46-year-old Bruce Weinstein.

McGroarty also sentenced DeChant's compatriot in the aftermath of the slaying, Robert Jones, to two years in prison although he already has served 14 months of that while awaiting trial.

Jones, the jury determined, supplied the pistol used in the murder and helped clean Weinstein's blood stains from his home after the murder.

Weinstein disappeared in July 1996 and his body was discovered in a shallow desert grave two months later. But it wasn't until this year that charges were brought against DeChant, 50, and Jones because of the circumstantial nature of the evidence that was available.

As police pieced together the bits of evidence, DeChant fled Las Vegas for the east coast where she finally was tracked down early this year. Jones was found in Arizona.

By its verdict, the jury said it didn't believe DeChant's story to police that vindictive "New York-looking type guys" actually were the killers and they allowed her to live only if she cleaned up the bloody death scene and kept quiet.

Weinstein's mother, Sylvia White, asked that the sentence give her "peace of mind."