BOISE -- The final defendant in a murder-for-hire scheme that left two men dead in Boise will spend the rest of his life behind bars, a judge ruled Tuesday.
John C. Douglas was sentenced to life without parole for the shooting deaths of Elliot Bailey and Travontae Calloway, and 15 years for shooting Calloway's girlfriend Jeanette Juraska, who survived. The sentences will run at the same time.
"This was essentially a cold-blooded execution," Judge Samuel Hoagland said as he handed down the sentence.
Prosecutors say Douglas, a Pennsylvania hitman, had been out of prison only 15 months when he agreed to kill Bailey and Calloway at the behest of a drug supplier who believed the victims had stolen 30 pounds of marijuana - roughly $100,000 worth - from a Boise stash house.
Anthony Robins Jr. of Fremont, California zeroed in on Calloway and Bailey as the people responsible for the Halloween 2013 drug theft because Calloway and his girlfriend had previously visited Robins' grow operation to help trim the marijuana plants, and knew when the shipment would arrive in the Treasure Valley.
According to testimony during the trial, Robins' plan for payback involved enlisting Douglas as a hired killer and the victims' friend Samari Winn to help set the trap.
Seven months after the marijuana was stolen, Robins and Douglas flew to Boise to put the plan in motion.
Douglas gunned down Calloway and Bailey May 8, 2014 inside the Orchard Street triplex where the victims were celebrating Calloway's 27th birthday. Prosecutors say Winn had stopped by the party earlier in the night with a bottle of alcohol for Calloway, before leaving and returning with the gunman.
When Juraska opened the door to Winn's knock, Douglas opened fire into the apartment, fatally wounding Bailey and Calloway and shooting Juraska through the arm as she ran up the stairs.
"There is no evidence in the record that Douglas knew Elliot or Travontae, and yet for only $300 he had gotten onto an airplane, flown thousands of miles to Boise, cased different locations and then barged into the apartment and gunned both of them down as they ran for their lives," Deputy Prosecutor Shelley Akamatsu said.
Winn and Douglas jumped into a getaway van driven by Robins after the shooting, and escaped into the rainy night.
Although Juraska identified Winn to police, it took months to connect the other defendants to the murders. Detectives tracked burner phones and flight information and traveled across the country to capture Douglas and Robins.
Douglas and Robins was convicted in January of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. Robins and Winn were both sentenced to life in prison earlier this year, with 40 years before they will be eligible for parole.
Akamatsu urged the judge not to give Douglas the chance to ever be released from prison, pointing to his extensive criminal history and questioning whether rehabilitation was even possible.
Douglas has five prior felony convictions in Pennsylvania, and has been in and out of prison for decades, the prosecutor said.
"Over the last 28 years, the longest period of time he's been able to stay out of prison is 24 months," she said.
In addition, Douglas racked up a multitude of disciplinary violations at the Ada County Jail, and vowed to harm a fellow inmate who had turned over evidence in the case to the prosecution.
"When [Douglas] was being brought to court for trial in January, he told the transfer officer, 'you will slip up one day and I will get close to him... or if I'm convicted and I go to prison I will get to him,'" Akamatsu recounted.
Defense attorney, Jack McMahon, made no argument before the sentence was handed down, and Douglas declined to make a statement.
Outside the courtroom, those close to the victims said they took consolation in the fact that the case had finally come to an end.
"We're just relieved," said Bailey's longtime girlfriend, who gave her name as Elle Marie. "It's been a really long process, a long few years."
The woman said she was grateful to the homicide detectives and prosecutors worked to bring her boyfriend's killers to justice.
"We'll never get them back, but we just want to be able to move forward," she said.