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A judge has sentenced a man to life in prison for killing University of South Carolina student Samantha Josephson after kidnapping her in Columbia's Five Points back in 2019. Nathaniel Rowland also spoke in court before sentencing.
Samantha, 21, got into Rowland’s car after a night out in Columbia’s Five Points entertainment district thinking it was an Uber ride that would take her back to her apartment, prosecutors said.
Instead, she found herself trapped because Rowland had the childproof locks on, investigators said. She was never seen alive again.
Her body as later found with 120 stab wounds in remote woods 65 miles from Columbia.
No outright motive for the killing was suggested by prosecutors during the course of Rowland's trial but Judge Newman said the killer was "totally heartless".
The judge said the case was the "most severe" murder he had seen in court before.
He told the court: "I have dealt with the heartless and you fall into that category, without any remorse whatsoever.
"A person who is totally emotionless and what the law would call a depraved heart."
Asked by news reporters what Rowland's motive might have been, top prosecutor Byron Gipson said: "It was absolutely a random act of violence.
"That’s one of those questions Mr. Rowland would have to answer at some point in time."
Samantha Josephson, from Robinsville, New Jersey, was a student at the University of South Carolina where she majored in political science.
Josephson, who was a senior at the time of her death, had planned to graduate in 2019 and go on to study law at Drexel University School of Law.
During her time at USC, she had studied abroad in Barcelona and visited Madrid and Paris.
Josephson had spent the night before her death in the Five Points district in downtown Columbia with friends.
She left a bar at 2am and had ordered an Uber home, and mistakenly got into Rowland’s car thinking it was her ride.
Detectives said she had just ordered a lift on the popular hail-a-ride app - but the real Uber driver later cancelled the journey after she failed to show up.
During the sentencing, her devastated mom Marci Josephson said: “Her dreams were my dreams, and her death was my death. I close my eyes, and I feel what she endured at his hands.”
Rowland was seen by cops driving a car that matched the description of the one Josephson was seen entering in CCTV footage.
He was caught and arrested on March 20, 2019.
Inside the vehicle, police found a container of liquid bleach, germicidal wipes, and window cleaner.
The car also contained Samantha’s cell phone and a large amount of blood was also discovered on the backseat.
Investigators also found cleaning supplies and a two-bladed knife with Josephson’s blood on them after searching the trash can behind Rowland’s girlfriend's residence.
Josephson’s DNA was also collected from Rowland’s fingernails.
He was charged with kidnapping, murder, and possession of a weapon during the commission of a crime in April 2019.
