(Stillwater, Okla.) — An ex-convict — for whom the death penalty had originally been sought — was sentenced to life in prison without parole today after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the slaying of a Cushing woman, who was stabbed in the throat.
Denny Allen Sisney, 36, of Cushing, was given a concurrent five-year prison term today for conspiracy to commit murder by Payne County Associate District Judge Stephen Kistler.
The body of the victim, 33-year-old Amber Nicole Sporleder, was found in a ditch about 7 a.m. on May 24, 2013, on Harmony Road north of Riverbend Road near Yale, according to preliminary hearing testimony.
Payne County District Attorney Tom Lee said today that members of the victim’s family were present in the courtroom and agreeable to the plea disposition for Sisney.
Laurie Darlene Bacon, 41, of Cushing, gave the “green light” to kill Sporleder, murder co-defendant Justin Allen Kelley, 32, of Cushing, testified in a preliminary hearing.
Bacon, who is serving a five-year prison term followed by five years of probation for twice possessing a drug near Cushing High School in 2013, is scheduled to have a Jan. 20 jury trial on a charge of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the slaying of Sporleder — who had lived with her.
Kelley, who was also charged with first-degree murder in the slaying, is serving a 25-year prison term followed by probation for life in exchange for his testimony against Bacon.
Kelley testified in a preliminary hearing that he drove the victim and Sisney in Bacon’s truck to the place where he said Sisney killed Sporleder, while Kelley stayed inside the vehicle with the radio turned up.
Kelley testified that the slain woman had been stealing Bacon’s personal items and “not paying her dope money.”
Bacon said that the victim “needed to be taught a lesson. Denny (Sisney) said he’d take care of it,” Kelley testified in a preliminary hearing.
Bacon said that the victim “was the reason she got busted the first time,” Kelley testified in a preliminary hearing.
At the time of his arrest in the victim’s slaying, Sisney was on 10 years’ probation for assault and battery on a police officer in Creek County in 2009.
Sisney served about five months of a one-year prison term for being a felon in possession of a .380 handgun in Tulsa County in 2011, state Department of Corrections records show. Sisney also served about four months of a one-year sentence for domestic assault and battery by strangulation in Creek County in 2007, DOC records show.
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