Pa. man gets life term in torture death

BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — A man was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his mentally disabled roommate, but the victim’s father thought a harsher sentence was warranted.

“Justice has been served, but it ain’t served the way it should have been served,” Doug Ritzert said. He would have preferred if Timothy James Caldwell had been sentenced to death, Ritzert said.

Caldwell, 30, of Butler, was sentenced Thursday to a life term after pleading guilty last week to first-degree murder in the death of 30-year-old Jason Michael Ritzert, whose body was found burned beyond recognition in a trash bin on Nov. 11, 2005.