Deputy's son gets 40+ years in stabbing

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - A young man convicted of fatally stabbing a teenage girl and burying her in a sand pile was ordered Friday to spend up to 70 years in prison.

Circuit Court Judge Thomas Power sentenced Robert Jensen Schwander to 40-70 years, more than three times the minimum recommended under state guidelines. A jury found Schwander guilty of second-degree murder last month in the death of 16-year-old Carly Jean Lewis.

Schwander lived with Carly's family temporarily after being kicked out of his own home.

Police said Schwander, 18, killed Carly with a broken pair of scissors during an argument in a hut he was using as his makeshift home. Schwander testified that Carly died after he put her in a choke hold to calm her down, but insisted he didn't intend to kill her.

Her body was found June 14 in a large mound of sand near the hut on the grounds of the city's public works complex. Her disappearance June 2 led to searches in Traverse City and nearby communities in Michigan's northwestern Lower Peninsula. Police said Schwander, whose father is Grand Traverse County sheriff's deputy Scott Schwander, eventually led them to Carly's body.

Minimum sentencing guidelines called for Schwander to serve 13.5 years to 22.5 years. But during a hearing Friday, Power noted that it may have taken Carly from a half-hour to an hour to die.

Schwander's failure to do anything to help her was "particularly cruel and soulless" and is a "substantial and compelling" reason to impose a harsher punishment, the judge said, according to the Traverse City Record-Eagle.

Schwander said he wished he could undo what happened.    "What I did was irreparable and wrong, but it was an
accident," he said. "I don't expect forgiveness from the Lewis family or anybody. I hope they can find strength and peace."

Susie Lewis, Carly's mother, told Schwander he cheated the girl "from experiencing her future. She had so much potential."

"When you took her from me, you left a void, a big, black, cold hole," she said.