HOUSTON Keith Grimmett was sentenced to life in prison Monday afternoon for the murder of Mac Haik manager Robert Kuentz.
Grimmett admitted he killed Kuentz at the Mac Haik dealership where they both worked in November 2012.
In a videotaped police interview played in Monday s sentencing hearing for Grimmett he says he and Kuentz had an argument at work the day before.
He didn t talk to me like a man...like I was a piece of trash Grimmett said in the police interview. Grimmett admits he came back the next morning with a 9mm pistol in his hand because I wanted his undivided attention.
Kuentz was sitting in a chair, and other co-workers were in the room, when Grimmett admits he raised the gun and fired one shot hitting Kuentz in the neck. Grimmett said he then drove home and threw the gun out his sunroof as he drove along the Sam Houston Parkway.
Prosecutors also played a very difficult piece of audio in the courtroom on Monday. An investigator recorded his brief emergency room interview with Robert Kuentz as the victim gasped for air in a hospital intensive care unit. The bullet had partially severed Kuentz brain stem and spinal cord. He was a quadriplegic on a breathing machine.
But with some of his lasts breaths he identified Grimmett as the man who shot him.
Grimmett showed no emotion in court this morning as Keuntz widow and his father gave emotional testimony about the murder.
The whole family is destroyed, said Larry Kuentz. You don t know if you re going to make one day at a time anymore.
Gives us peace that justice can be done, Keuntz said after the sentence was announced. He got life in prison and we got life and....we got life also. We just gotta try to deal with this and live with it and hope it doesn t happen to anybody else.
Defense attorney Stan Broussard also offered the Kuentz family his condolences.
They ve suffered a very tragic loss, a very violent act, Broussard said. I want them to know I have kept them in my prayers off and on over the past year. I want them to be OK with this to find their peace with it as much as they can. And they had my sincerest condolences.
