A South Carolina man was given a life sentence for the March 2019 abduction and murder of a 21-year-old Samantha Josephson who mistook his car for her Uber ride.
On Tuesday, July 27, Nathaniel Rowland was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Josephson, a student at the University of South Carolina, who disappeared from Columbia’s Five Points entertainment district after she got into Rowland’s car mistaking it for her Uber.
Once in the car, Samantha found herself trapped in the back seat because Rowland had the childproof locks on, investigators said.
Her body was later found in the remote woods about 65 miles from Columbia with roughly 120 stab wounds.
"Her dreams were my dreams, and her death was my death. I close my eyes, and I feel what she endured at his hands," the victim’s mother, Marci Josephson, said during the sentencing trial Tuesday.
"I pray that when Sami closed her eyes she thought of beautiful things and his evil face was not the last thing she saw before she took her last breath," she said.
"I pray that when Sami closed her eyes she thought of beautiful things and his evil face was not the last thing she saw before she took her last breath," she said, the WSTV reported.
During the week-long trial, prosecutors presented voluminous evidence and called nearly three dozen witnesses.
Even as Rowland maintained his innocence, Circuit Judge Clifton Newman noted that all the evidence point against him.
"She obviously put up an amazing fight against you and left a sufficient trail for the jury to see what you did," Newman said after slamming Rowland with a life sentence.
Traces of Samantha’s blood was found in the interior of Rowland’s Chevrolet Impala and also on the murder weapon, a knife with two blades.
"I still to this day can’t believe she is gone. I keep waiting for her to walk through the door saying "hey" only the way she does," Samantha’s father, Seymour Josephson said.
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