SABINE COUNTY, Texas — An East Texas family received the justice they were awaiting for more than a year on Tuesday.
Livye Lewis, 19, was killed by her boyfriend Matthew Edgar, 26, in Sabine County in October 2020.
Edgar was convicted of murdering her in January 2022, but he had skipped out on the third day of his trial and was missing until he was found Dec. 29 on a back porch of a local home.
In his absence, Edgar was sentenced to 99 years in prison. On Thursday, a judge officially issued his sentence.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Edgar will be eligible for parole on May 31, 2052. He is now serving his sentence in the Byrd Unit in Huntsville.
Before he was taken away to prison, Lewis' grandmother Janice Lewis and mother Darci Bass had their chance to speak directly to Edgar.
Cameras were not allowed but the courtroom was packed and full of emotion with what looked like Lewis' family and friends.
Edgar walked into the room dressed in a pink jumpsuit, handcuffed and shackled.
Janice Lewis said directly to Edgar she'll never know why he took Lewis from them and he'll never know how broken her family has been since.
She said, “my whole family is broken.”
"Today in court, whenever I ask him certain questions," Janice Lewis said. "He nodded his head yes to me. That assured me like, yes, ma'am, I did do it."
She added that she's not holding on to hate.
"I hope God wraps him around his arms," Bass said. "At first, I had so much hate and everything, but I've gotten over that. I look back now, and I think things were for a reason. Livye lived her life."
Bass asked the judge to play her daughter’s high school valedictorian speech as her own statement, which the judge allowed.
Many sobbed rewatching Livye list her dreams in the video.
"It wasn't until I grew up and decided that my studies were more important than all the drama and everything else of high school," Livye said in the video. "And that's what pushed me to be first in my class like I am today in here talking to y'all as my class is valedictorian."
Her family shared the video, hopeful someone can find meaning in what happened to Livye. Her mother said justice is served.
"We got to see the justice system actually work for us," Bass said. "So there will be no real justice for my daughter's life. We lost more than he or anyone can imagine but her name will forever live on. Long live within Livye."
Livye's friend Taylor Nabours said they were like sisters.
"She played a really big role in my baby's life," Nabours said. "This is like the only form of justice that we're gonna get because we're never gonna get her back. So I felt really good."