A Tarrant County man accused of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty by a jury Thursday morning.
Christopher Revill was found guilty in the kidnapping of Typhenie Johnson, who was last seen outside the Post Oak East Apartments on Tristan Lane in East Fort Worth on Oct. 10, 2016.
"The jury has found you guilty on your plea of not guilty of the offense of aggravited kidnapping. The court now finds that the allegations set forth in the habitual offenders notice are true. It is therefore the order, judgement and decree of this court that this defendant Christopher Revill is hereby sentenced to confinment for life in the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice," Judge Chris Wolfe read Thursday.
Earlier in the day Thursday, the jury found Revill guilty.
"We, the jury, find the defendant Christopher Revill guilty of aggravated kidnapping as charged in the indictment," Judge Chris Wolfe read Thursday.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys finished closing arguments just before 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. The jury was released around 7 p.m. Wednesday without a reaching a verdict before returning Thursday morning.
Investigators had alleged Revill intended to kill Johnson, his ex-girlfriend, with prosecutors arguing that Revill was the only person with both motive and opportunity to kidnap Johnson.
The case moved into the sentencing phase Thursday with the state calling several witnesses to the stand, including Revill's sister. One of the witnesses called to the stand used to work with the Fort Worth Police Department and recalled Revill reporting in 2006, another woman he had a child with was missing.
That woman was identified as Taalibah Islam in court. At the time of the call, the witness said Revill reported Islam had been missing for 16 days.
"She had exited the house and got into a vehicle he had never seen before and left the child in his prescence," the witness testified while reading the call report.
During closing arguments Wednesday, Callaghan described the relationship between Revill and Johnson as "possessive and obsessive" pointing to the hundreds of photos he had of her on his phone and text messages.
Prosecutors said Revill was also never able to explain blood on his clothing and a tear in his shirt on the night of Johnson’s disappearance, claiming he also lied on several occasions regarding his whereabouts.
"Why would a person destroy text messages? Why would a person destroy their web history? Why would they delete it?" Callaghan told the jury. "He [Revill] is the only person who has her clothing in his backyard. He is the only person who showed signs of recent exertion or struggle. He is the only person who didn’t care that she was missing."
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Lesa Pamplin, one of Revill's attorneys, called the investigation 'lazy' and suggested the state's case was incomplete.
"Not one shred of evidence puts her [Johnson] in the trunk of that car. Not one. They put BlueStar in the trunk of the car for blood evidence. Nothing," Pamplin said. "At what point did they [state] ever prove to you that she was in the trunk of that car? By the end of testimony yesterday, she was in the passenger seat. You can’t have it both ways."
Marquetta Clayton, another attorney representing Revill, told the jurors mere presence at a scene does not equate to evidence. Some of the text messages introduced in court were taken out of context, Clayton claimed.
