TAVARES — “Wild Bill” Roberts got his wish Thursday: He will spend the rest of his life on Death Row with other wild men, in his case, for killing his girlfriend and riding around with her body in the trunk of her car for four days.

“Thank you,” he said, when Circuit Judge G. Richard Singeltary sentenced him to death.

Roberts will go down as one of the most vicious killers in Lake County as well as a nightmare defense attorney client. He wanted to represent himself in court; he refused to allow mitigating evidence; and at one point he wouldn't leave his cell for trial. He also rejected a jury trial, saying he wanted to take the stand; and finally he asked to be sent to the Row.

The verdict: Judge finds 'Wild Bill' guilty of murdering his girlfriend

'That was stolen from her': Victim's daughter, others testify in 'Wild Bill's' sentencing

More: 'Wild Bill' Roberts asking for the death penalty — he's not the first in Lake County

About the crime

The slaying of Elizabeth Hellstrom in 2017 was heinous, atrocious, and cruel, and he has a history of five violent felony convictions, Circuit Judge G. Richard Singeltary ruled Thursday, citing two of the aggravators in the death penalty law.

Hellstrom, 55, suffered bleeding on the brain, her sternum was fractured, ribs broken, the fat in her abdomen ripped from muscle tissue consistent with stomping, and her kidney was split almost in half. Her ear was severed, and her arms and legs were covered with bruises and abrasions – defensive wounds, prosecutors argued.

There were more than 40 wounds on her body inflicted by a short, stout, wooden handle that was covered with her blood and his DNA and found in his bloodied RV. A surveillance video showed him dragging her body out of the trailer.

Defense attorney Candace Hawthorne got the medical examiner to concede that it was possible that Hellstrom lost consciousness with the first blow, but Assistant State Attorneys Rich Buxman and Nick Camuccio argued that she knew what was happening to her when she was being choked to death, and the judge agreed in his sentencing memorandum.

“Dr. Lavezzi explained that because of the appearance of the wounds and the internal hemorrhages associated with each wound, all of the wounds … were inflicted prior to her death. If the wounds were inflicted after her death, there would be no hemorrhaging…, “ the prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum.

She noted, “it was apparent that the victim was moving and squirming in an attempt to fend off the blows resigning down upon her 5’2”, 120-pound body.”

Though he wanted to be sentenced to death, he still went down swinging verbally after the courtroom was cleared, blasting Hawthorne for not interviewing the witnesses he wanted or asking the questions he wanted asked in deposition.  In fact, she appeared be conferring with him consistently in court.

He also claimed all the state witnesses lied.

“Every one of them (expletives) that got on the stand perjured themselves,” Roberts said.

'I shut her up'

Roberts’ own words helped condemn him.

He told a lot of stories. Initially, he told friends she overdosed on pills, and that they were attacked by bikers, neither was supported by evidence.

Roberts also told a fellow jail inmate, “The b---h wouldn’t shut up, so I shut her up.”

There were also threatening texts. One, addressed to her referred to someone who had insulted him. “…I see that punk he will be a photo on a milk carton.”

Roberts told her, “You wanted the old Wild Bill [expletive], fight or hold the light.”

He told a jail visitor he knew he was “going down for murder” and that his past was “going to bite me in the ass.”

Witnesses talked about that past, including a woman who said she was raped by Roberts in front of her 2-year-old son.

She said he ripped off her clothing and said, “If you’re not going to give it, I’m going to take it.”

She was so terrified she fled to West Virginia, making the rape case against him impossible to prosecute.

Among Roberts' convictions, however, was a seven-year prison sentence for aggravated assault with a weapon in a 2004 Volusia case, 4 ½ years in Orange County for armed burglary and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in 1985, and 2 ½ years in Lake County for burglary and assault.

There was testimony by a woman in the sentencing phase of the trial that he threatened her when she didn’t call her boyfriend at work when Roberts showed up at her home one day. He began waving a gun at the African-American woman. She testified that he said, “he’d hang me from a tree like other people in Lake County, or he’d shoot me right then.”

“There’s a bullet with your name on it,” she quoted him.

One man said he was once chased by Roberts in the Ocala National Forest and had to hide while Roberts destroyed his truck.

'A wonderful mother and grandmother'

The death of Hellstrom, who had struggled with drugs and served some prison time, left a gaping hole in his family, her daughter, Ingrid Hellstrom testified.

“She was a wonderful mother and grandmother," she said. "I will never again have or be able to hold and hug my mother ever again and tell her how much I love her and how badly I need her.”

Volusia County sheriff’s deputies raced after Roberts in Hellstrom’s car from DeLand to the Royal Trails subdivision in Lake County on Dec. 21, 2017. He ran over stop sticks, puncturing the tires, finally ending up at the Royal Trails subdivision where he abandoned the car.

“I did it. I didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident,” a deputy quoted him as saying. Roberts denied saying it.

Before he was captured, he told a friend that he was going to take some pills and kill himself with propane gas while lying beside her. Investigators found a shovel and a propane gas tank in the trunk next to her decomposing body wrapped in a blue tarp.

Hawthorne, a veteran defense attorney and former assistant public defender, tried her best to keep Roberts from self-destruction. At one point, she told the judge she wanted to quit as the court-appointed attorney. “We have a lot of disagreements,” she said.

Roberts was adamant he did not want to go back to the general population prison lockup. “You’d better have your boots laced tight,” he said. Now, he will be confined to a solitary 6-foot-9 cell until the executioner calls his name.

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Judge sentences 'Wild Bill' to death for murdering his girlfriend