Murderer, 20, receives a life sentence in Everett trial

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He left bloody footprints in Gail Jubie's Everett-area home, prosecutors said, and a trail of footprints in the frozen grass leading to his parents' house two doors away.

They said he had blood on his shoes, on his baseball hat and on his ear when authorities talked to him shortly after Jubie was killed last December — stabbed 31 times and shot.

And even though he reportedly said that a friend of his killed the 37-year-old woman, it didn't take long for Snohomish County sheriff's officials to arrest Brandon Kenneth White, now 20. And it didn't take long for prosecutors to charge him with aggravated first-degree murder, or for a jury to find him guilty last month of that offense.

Yesterday, he was sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole.

"I can't even look at that young man over there for what he did and what he took from us," said Bob Jubie, the eldest of Gail Jubie's 11 brothers and sisters and the first to address the court yesterday.

One by one, they came forward and told White and Judge Linda Krese about Gail, the youngest in the family, and what their lives have been without her.

They described a cautious and caring woman who was devoted to her family, spending much of her adult life caring for her mother and her father before they died, her father just weeks before her. She lived in the home her family built and she grew up in, and worked at Albertson's. Her siblings said they looked forward to her marrying and having children; a friend called her a late bloomer who was finally ready to bloom.

"It's so horrible it does not seem real," her brother Alfred Jubie said. Sisters said they didn't feel safe answering the door or being out alone at night anymore.

Prosecutors accused White — who family members said was a stranger to Jubie — of murdering her the morning of Dec. 11, 2000, while trying to rob her. They did not seek the death penalty because of White's youth and lack of a criminal history, deputy prosecutor Craig Matheson said; the only other punishment for aggravated murder is life in prison without parole.

White spoke at yesterday's sentencing hearing as well, saying he was sorry for the family but maintaining someone else killed Jubie.

"I never, ever once hurt anybody," he said. "You guys keep saying that I'm such a monster. You don't know me."

A friend also spoke on his behalf, calling him courageous and a nice person.

Janet Burkitt can be reached 206-515- 5689 or at jburkitt@seattletimes.com.