La Crosse man gets life in drug-related killing
Killed woman after she called for drugs
LA CROSSE, Wis. — A La Crosse man was sentenced to life in prison without release for the murder of a woman who prosecutors said had gone to buy crack cocaine from him.
Forty-four-year-old Izelia Golatt was sentenced Friday in the strangulation of 35-year-old Kristen Rodgers. A jury convicted him in September.
Prosecutors say Golatt killed Rodgers in a La Crosse alley last March after she called him for drugs.
Golatt maintains his innocence.
The La Crosse Tribune reports Rodgers’ mother, Kathy Tabbert, testified Friday that Golatt broke her heart.
Although Rodgers had cocaine in her system, an autopsy determined she died of strangulation.
The defense claimed she died of cocaine-induced heart failure and hypothermia.
