COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — A man who pleaded guilty in connection to a double homicide in Commerce City has been sentenced to prison.
On Wednesday, Thomas Holleman, 68, was sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus 48 years, according to the 17th Judicial District Attorney's Office.
He pleaded guilty in March to first-degree murder after deliberation in connection to the death of Raphael Sassi, 42, and second-degree murder in connection to the death of Mary Broad, 59.
On the evening of April 5, 2019, officers with the Commerce City Police Department responded to the 10800 block of Belle Creek Boulevard after Holleman called 911 and said he had just killed his landlord and one of his roommates, according to the district attorney's office.
Holleman added that he would wait for police on the front porch. Officers found him there and arrested him, according to the district attorney's office. When police went into the residence, they found Sassi and Broad dead on the floor. Both had been shot multiple times in the chest and head.
Holleman’s defense team said he pleaded guilty to spare the grieving families more pain, but Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Mason said he believed Holleman knew the evidence was overwhelming and a trial would reveal his actions to his peers.
“It would have revealed to them and the world what he had done and who he was,” Mason said. “And that he could not bear.”
Mason said Holleman committed a “gruesome, selfish, outrageous, and, most of all, brutal double homicide.” He said Sassi and Broad had both just achieved “long-sought happiness in their own lives.”
On Wednesday, Adams County District Judge Priscilla Loew sentenced Holleman to life in prison without parole, plus 48 years.
“There are no words to describe what you did,” she told Holleman. “This was an unprovoked, undeserved, unjustified cold killing of two people who did nothing to lose their lives.”
