A Dawson County man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole, the maximum sentence possible, for the gang-related murder of a 21-year-old Georgia woman in 2019.
Austin Todd Stryker, 24, of Dawsonville, received the life sentence Wednesday, a little more than a month after he was found guilty on all 24 charges he faced in the killing of Hannah Bender, according to court records. Those charges included malice murder and 10 counts of criminal street gang activity.
Credit: Lumpkin County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Lumpkin County Sheriff's Office
“The State is thankful that Judge Kathlene Gosselin gave the maximum sentence in Stryker’s murder conviction, the only one which would accomplish justice for Hannah Bender’s family,” District Attorney for Georgia’s Northeastern Judicial Circuit Lee Darragh said. “All murder cases are horrible, of course, but the actions of this defendant were especially heinous.”
Many details of Bender’s killing were revealed in April when two men who were also suspects in the murder case testified as part of a negotiated plea deal, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. The two men, 20-year-old Isaac Thomas Huff and 21-year-old Dylan Patrick Reid, each described in their testimony how Bender was lured from her home, killed without warning and buried in a shallow grave in Forsyth County.
Huff and Reid testified that the killing was planned by Stryker with the blessing of 79-year-old Jerry Harper. All four men were members of a small criminal gang known as “THIS,” though Stryker and Harper were higher-ranking members, according to the testimony.
The two men’s testimony described how Bender got into the back of a pickup truck with Huff and Stryker carrying a packed bag after they told her they were going on a vacation to Florida. While driving through Dawson County, Stryker shot Bender in the head while she was in “mid-sentence,” according to one of the prosecuting attorneys. Bender was critically injured by the gunshot, but not killed. The men then took Bender to Huff’s home, and Huff and Reid testified that Stryker repeatedly stabbed Bender, leaving her dead from dozens of wounds.
After the killing, Stryker disappeared and became the center of a manhunt after Bender was reported missing, the AJC previously reported. Stryker turned himself in to authorities in Pittsburgh in October 2019 and was extradited to Georgia five months later.
Harper, the alleged gang leader, was arrested and indicted on one count of violating Georgia’s street gang law and hindering the apprehension of a criminal, records show. According to his indictment, he helped hide Stryker in the days after Bender’s death while Stryker’s whereabouts were unknown to authorities.
On Tuesday, Harper was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to hindering the apprehension of a criminal and two counts of criminal street gang activity, the Gainesville Times reported.
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