Jill Rockcastle has been sentenced to 10 years to live in a Nevada prison after she stabbed her husband, a poker player, to death in a luxury condominium in Las Vegas. Authorities said that Gustafik was stabbed up to 15 times.
Rockcastle, aged 50, sobbed in the court room and professed her love for her deceased husband, William Gustafik, as she apologised before the sentencing took place. She was sentenced this Tuesday by Clark County District Court Judge Michael Villani.
She said: "I just lost control," as she pleaded the equivalent of no contest to second degree murder. Gustafik was a former California corrections officer and chiropractor. He later became a Las Vegas poker pro and went by the nickname “The Manipulator”.
Rockcastle made an ‘Alford plea’ avoiding trial and acknowledging that the prosecutors could prove the case against her. Her defence lawyer, Joseph Abood, cast Rockcastle as a battered wife who grabbed a knife and stabbed Gustafik after he grabbed her by the hair. The prosecutor, Sam Bateman, said there was no evidence Gustafik was violent toward Rockcastle. She had been arrested several days after the death of her husband, when she was found unconscious in a San Luis Obispo motel, where she was believed to have taken an overdose.
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