LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada jury decided Thursday that a man should serve life in state prison without the possibility of parole for breaking into a hotel-casino room on the Las Vegas Strip and killing two tour leaders Vietnamese in 2018.

Julius Damiano Deangilo Trotter, 37, was spared the death penalty by the same state court jury that found him guilty Tuesday of murder, robbery and robbery in the hotel stabbings of Sang Boi Nghia and Khoung Ba Le Nguyen Circus Circus.

Defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen said afterward that Trotter and his legal team appreciated the jury’s decision, but that Trotter will appeal his conviction and sentence “as a normal part of the criminal justice system.”

“I think everyone is grateful that Mr. Trotter was sentenced to life in prison,” Rasmussen told The Associated Press. “The jury itself ruled out the death penalty.”

Jurors issued their decision after testimony from Trotter, his relatives, and relatives of Nghia and Nguyen, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. reported. Trotter was seen mouthing “thank you” to the jury after the verdict was read, the newspaper reported. Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt scheduled Trotter’s sentencing for Jan. 15. He remains imprisoned in Las Vegas.

Trotter told jurors Wednesday that he wanted to have “a positive impact on the people around me, as far as my family, my kids, my mom, my brother and my sisters, etc.”

Nghia, 38, was a mother of three and ran a travel business with her husband in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Nguyen, 30, was one of his employees. Their bodies were found after they failed to show up for a group tour trip.

Police said hotel employees later determined that the room’s lock was not properly secured and that Trotter apparently found it open while walking down the hotel hallway and testing the door handles.

Trotter was arrested about a week after the murders with his girlfriend, Itaska Dean, following a police chase in Chino, California.

Rasmussen acknowledged that Trotter had a criminal record: He was serving five years of probation at the time of the murders after a felony conviction for resisting a police officer with a weapon. But the lawyer said Trotter also had the support of a loving family.

Dean pleaded guilty in California to evading arrest. She was not charged with any crime for the murders of Nghia and Nguyen, and testified during Trotter’s trial.

Trotter also testified, denying killing Nghia and Nguyen. But police and prosecutors said they found items belonging to Nghia and Nguyen, including a purse, wallets, a cellphone, jewelry and Vietnamese cash.

The last person executed in a Nevada prison was Daryl Mack in April 2006, for a 1988 rape and murder in Reno. Mack requested that the lethal injection be administered.

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