PORT ANGELES — For the family of Melissa Leigh Carter, the 15-year-old girl who Robert Gene Covarrubias raped and strangled in December 2004, the Friday guilty verdict was cathartic.
“I was kind of scared, sitting on the edge of my seat,” said Carla Carter, Melissa’s mother.
“I’m glad justice is served for her.”
Testimony in the case took three weeks, but it took fewer than seven hours for a Clallam County jury to render the guilty verdict on Friday in the first-degree murder trial of 25-year-old Covarrubias.
When the jury foreman read the verdict, the 100 or so people in Clallam County Superior Court did not cheer.
Depending on where a person was sitting, it sounded like the crowd either gasped or exhaled.
“It’s been a difficult case for everyone involved,” said Judge George Wood.
“A little girl got justice,” said Eric Kovatch, Port Angeles Police Department’s lead investigator on the case, who sat beside Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deborah Kelly throughout the four-week trial.
“There are no winners in this at all.”
Kelly agreed with Kovatch.
“‘Win’ is not the right word,” she said.
Covarrubias will appeal the verdict, said his attorney, public defender Ralph Anderson.