A man who randomly stabbed a woman to death in a D.C. hotel room three years ago was sentenced Friday to 40 years in prison.
Christy Bautista, 31, was staying at the Ivy City Hotel while in town for a concert in March 2023.
Bautista’s friends and family packed the courtroom Friday, when the prosecutor said video shows 46-year-old George Sydnor waiting just outside Bautista’s room when she returned. When he got inside, he stabbed her to death in what prosecutors called a heinous, vicious and cruel killing.
Sydnor pleaded guilty. He gave no explanation for the killing.
“Just the randomness of it all is, I don’t know, it’s hard to digest,” sister Emily Bautista said outside court.
In court, she and her sister Ashley Bautista tearfully told the judge how much their lives had changed since their older sister was so brutally killed. They told the judge how they looked up to their big sister, who taught them how to ride a bike and swim and was very talented on violin.
Sydnor sat in a wheelchair and never looked up through the entire proceeding but offered a short apology when he was given a chance to speak. He looked at the judge and said he didn’t mean for any of this to happen and he is terribly sorry.
Family members also had harsh criticism for a judge who released Sydnor in the days before the murder.
An emotional gathering followed outside the courthouse.
“I have been to every court hearing where I have had to see his face, and it has been immensely hard to just sit there where he asks for a lighter sentencing,” Emily said, choking back sobs and wiping away her tears.
“This has made our family become a shell of what it was,” Ashley Bautista said. “I feel like there’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing you can say that can reverse what’s happened and what’s happened to our family. And I really just think that all we wanted is to have Christy with us. That’s all everyone wants is to have their loved one with them.”
