'One of the most chilling things I’ve ever heard,' judge tells Caroline Schollaert's killer

In sentencing Caroline Schollaert's killer to life in prison, Judge Meredith Charbula advised the 23-year-old that "listening to this young lady die was one of the most chilling things I’ve ever heard, and I’m old and I’ve heard a lot."

Prosecutors had played the 911 call of Schollaert as she was holding Tyree Leevon Parker at gunpoint after discovering him breaking into her car outside her Riverside home. Then came gunfire, but it wasn't from the 26-year-old Coast Guard member. Schollaert was shot several times and died that August 2021 morning.

Parker pleaded guilty on July 5 to second-degree murder and armed burglary and faced a minimum 25 years in prison before Thursday's three-hour sentencing hearing.

Caroline Schollaert, 26, was shot and killed on Aug. 3, 2021, while trying to stop a thief from breaking into her car in front of her Myra Street home in Jacksonville.

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Home and neighborhood security video showed the shooting and Parker before and afterward running down the sidewalk and getting into a waiting vehicle. Detectives also found several items of Parker’s during a search of the area, according to Assistant State Attorneys Lauren Randall and Dan Skinner.

At least eight other vehicles were burglarized in the same Jacksonville neighborhood that night, and the weapon used to kill Schollaert had been stolen from an unlocked vehicle 11 days prior, then-Chief T.K. Waters said at the time.

Parker's last listed address on Goodwin Street was about a mile from the scene on Myra Street. He was arrested a week after the shooting. He showed almost no reaction as the judge made her final ruling.

Tyree Leevon Parker listens to the judge sentencing him to life in prison for the 2021 shooting death of 26-year-old Caroline Schollaert who had caught him trying to break into her car.

The Schollaert family did not wish to be interviewed, but State Attorney Melissa Nelson issued the following statement:

“Caroline Schollaert was a selfless friend and bright light in this world, and she served our country with distinction in the U.S. Coast Guard. Her senseless murder has caused deep pain to those who knew and loved her. Today’s sentence of life without parole is appropriate.”

(The sentencing video is from news partner First Coast News.)

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville man sentenced in Caroline Schollaert's death while on 911