The man who raped and strangled a Bothell teenager in 1993 will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Alan Edward Dean had an outburst in court Wednesday maintaining his innocence right before a Snohomish County judge sentenced him to nearly 27 years in prison, with credit for time served. The sentencing came more than three decades after the brutal killing of 15yearold Melissa Lee.

It was in 1993 that Melissa was raped and strangled and her body was thrown from an Everett bridge. Dean was arrested for Lee’s murder in 2020 when DNA found at the scene tied him to the crime. There were four years of legal delays due to mental health concerns before a jury found him guilty in late March.

At the sentencing Wednesday, Lee’s mother and sister gave emotional testimony about how Dean's actions flipped their lives upside down, as they urged the judge to give Dean the maximum possible sentence. The prosecutor explained the maximum sentence for firstdegree murder in Washington state would be 320 months because Dean had no prior offenses.

Full story: https://komonews.com/news/local/mans...

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