A Pueblo County jury found Donthe Lucas guilty of first-degree murder in the 2013 death of his girlfriend, Kelsie Schelling, after only a few hours of deliberation. He was charged with the murder of Kelsie, his pregnant 21-year-old girlfriend.

Schelling’s body has never been found, despite the fact that she is presumed dead. On Monday, a jury returned a guilty verdict against Lucas after a 14-day trial.

According to prosecutors, Schelling vanished the day after sending Lucas an ultrasound of their unborn child.

She went missing on February 4, 2013. According to authorities, she traveled from Denver to Pueblo to meet Lucas at a Walmart after sending Lucas the ultrasound.

According to cell phone data, Schelling’s car remained parked at the business until the morning of Feb. 6, 2013, when an unidentified man picked it up and drove away.

Schelling vanished into thin air, never to be seen or heard from again. The trial against Lucas began in early February. His defense team did not call any witnesses.

Lucas pled not guilty to Schelling’s murder in August 2018. His trial date has been set several times before being rescheduled.

When Lucas’ attorneys indicated they had information on the case during a hearing on Jan. 21, the trial was almost postponed again; however, the defense team stated unequivocally that the trial would proceed.

In a decision handed down just after 4 p.m. Monday, the jury convicted Donthe Lucas guilty of first-degree murder. Following that, he was condemned to a life without the possibility of parole, which is the obligatory term for first-degree murder convictions.

According to a Colorado Bureau of Investigation officer, Schelling was strangled by Lucas after she arrived in Pueblo.

During the trial, jurors heard an interview with Lucas conducted by Pueblo police following his arrest in 2017, in which he denied any involvement in Schelling’s death but admitted to leaving Schelling’s car at the hospital.

Nothing much about Donthe Lucas’s family background is known as of now. Sara Lucas’ stature, like that of her son Donthe, towered over the audience when she took the witness stand in a Pueblo County courthouse on Friday.

Ms Lucas remembers getting her children and grandson ready for school on February 5 and then travelling to pick up her mother, Vivian Lucas, to run errands with her.

She observed Kelsie’s car parked in front of Vivian’s house when she arrived.