VIERA, Fla. — A Brevard County man was sentenced to life in prison Monday after he was found guilty of murder and other crimes in an attack on a woman in her Melbourne home in 2012.
- Jury finds Matthew Sharp, guilty of 1st-degree murder
- Leah Yoresh killed in her Albert Drive home in January 2012
- Police pulled over Yoresh's stolen car with Sharp, 2 others inside
- RELATED:
A Brevard County jury on Monday found Matthew Sharp, 28, of Melbourne guilty of one count of first-degree murder, one count of grand theft of a motor vehicle, and one count of unauthorized use of a credit card.
Leah Yoresh, 34, was killed in her Albert Drive home on January 11, 2012. Melbourne Police pulled over Yoresh's stolen car on January 17, with Sharp and two others inside.
Authorities initially arrested Sharp on a grand theft charge. Investigators said they later found the woman's blood on Sharp's shoes. A grand jury indicted Sharp on first-degree murder March 3, 2013.
After a two-week trial, jurors began deliberations Monday afternoon and returned with a guilty verdict on all counts, according to Todd Brown, a spokesman for the Brevard-Seminole State Attorney's Office.
Sharp was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Yoresh's murder, Brown said.
Sharp was designated a habitual felony offender on the other two counts. That increases the penalty to 10 years in prison on each count. Those sentences will be served at the same time as his life sentence.
