DENVER - A jury found a man guilty Wednesday in the 1979 murder of a young woman found beaten in the sanctuary of a Denver church.
James Scott, 53, was convicted of two counts of first-degree felony murder, and one count of second-degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Martha Guzman.
On October 25, 1979, Guzman was alone in a church at 3401 Bryant preparing for an evening service when she was attacked. The pastor and his family found her and called for help. She was taken to what is now Denver Health Medical Center and died several days later from her injuries.
In 2006, Scott was extradited to Denver from New York, in connection with a 1995 sexual assault and kidnapping case. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 years in prison on that case. Detectives identified Scott as a suspect in Guzman's murder during the course of the sexual assault case, and he was charged in her murder. However, a legal restriction prevented the murder case from going forward at that time since Scott had been brought to Colorado for the sole purpose of facing the charges in the 1995 case. Scott was returned to New York to serve a lengthy prison sentence for a sexual assault there and the Denver murder charge was dismissed so that it could be re-filed, which it was last fall.
Scott went to immediate sentencing in Denver District Court this afternoon, facing a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. The case was prosecuted by Denver Chief Deputy DA Dawn Weber and Chief Deputy DA Julie Hamel.
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